


Pareidolia

by Pseudothyrum



Series: The Discoverie of Witchcraft [9]
Category: Constantine (TV), Hellblazer & Related Fandoms, The Question (Comics)
Genre: Case Fic, Crossover, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Liverpool, Needles, Occult horror, People who can't talk about their feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 14:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19230739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pseudothyrum/pseuds/Pseudothyrum
Summary: With everything unsettled between them, Constantine has returned to England, while Charlie remains behind in Hub City. A journey home is complicated by the appearance of a monster from Constantine's past. Meanwhile, Charlie must deal with a threat to the tenuous political threads that hold Hub City together.





	Pareidolia

**Author's Note:**

> For my beta, and to the readers who have stuck with me.

It is grey and cold and drizzling when Constantine emerges from the underground. The pavement is a sea of umbrellas flowing lazily in all directions, broken by the occasional unfortunate who scurries between them with as much dignity as possible, no doubt jealous of their more forward-thinking compatriots.

Constantine sighs and lights up, ignoring the nasty look cast his way by a passing dad carrying a squalling infant.

As he walks aimlessly up the high street he breathes in the scent of London, lets it energy flood his veins. The city always feels the same, no matter how long he spends outside of it. No matter what happens to him while he’s gone, London never really changes.

He looks down at his mobile, turns it around several times in his hands, thinks about texting Charlie to let him know that he’s made it back safe. Before he can really address the fact that he’s seriously considering not texting him, the screen lights up.

“ _I saw that your flight landed. Are you home safe?_ ”

He stares at the message, tries to sort through the cascade of emotions he feels, and lands on uneasy.

Shoving the phone into his pocket, he stalks to the nearest pub. It isn’t until he’s upstairs that he fully registers it’s the place he brought Charlie when they were in London together, which makes him more unsettled. It’s too late to back out though, Frankie at the bar has noticed him, and waves him over with a nauseatingly happy grin.

“Alright, John?” she asks, far too cheerful, “Heard you were in America. You here by yourself?”

“Yeah, ‘fraid so, luv,” he says, putting on a grin. Her face becomes serious, and she leans towards him across the bar top.

“Boy trouble again?” she asks, not quite hiding her teasing smile.

“Sod off. You know how things are going over there. Didn’t fancy getting thrown in a literal hole when someone realized I didn’t have a visa.” He feels his mobile buzz in his pocket, alerting him to the unanswered text from Charlie, but he doesn’t look at it, and his grin doesn’t waver. “Beer?”

* * *

An unknowable number of hours later, Constantine is stumbling along the pavement in the vague direction of his flat, singing quietly to himself. A car rolls up beside him, keeping pace with his staggering.

“Oi, John,” Chas calls, “get in, you berk.”

“Me da told me not to accept rides from strange men,” Constantine says, opening the door and spilling into the backseat regardless. “Actually, I think he told me that I _should_ , now I think of it,” he addresses the roof, draped precariously over the whole of the seat, half of his body dangling almost onto the floor,“and if he was lucky I’d be dead in a ditch by morning.”

“You’re in a good mood, I see. Have a good time in America, then? How’s our Vic?”

Constantine makes an unintelligible noise, covering his face with his arms.

“That good, huh?”

“Oh, ‘s all great, Chas. We’re looking at flowers right now, you’ll get your invite in the mail soon.”

“Is that so?” Chas’ voice is neutral.

“Yeah, why else d’you think I’m back here? ‘S unlucky t’see the bride before the wedding, y’know.”

“Well, congratulations. I’ll get you two a toaster.”

He feels his mobile buzz, fishes it out his pocket, blearily registers that it’s Charlie’s name on the screen, and promptly drops the phone to the floor of the cab as they go over a bump.

“Was that important?” Chas asks.

“’S the bloody network, keep texting to welcome me back to the UK.”

“’Course. So, not our Vic, then?”

“Christ Chas, why d’you keep asking about him, d’you fancy him or something?”

Chas doesn’t answer, just lets Constantine stew in the ensuing silence. Eventually it gets to be too much, and he feels compelled to add, “He texted me earlier. Tracked me flight. Saw when I landed, wanted to make sure I got home safe.”

He isn’t sure what he’s expecting Chas to say, braces himself for it anyways.

“That’s sweet of him,” Chas says. He sounds almost as if a weight is off his shoulders.

“Oh,” Constantine says, because whatever he was expecting, that wasn’t it. “Yeah, I guess."

"You guess?"

Constantine groans, rubbing at his eyes, letting the question go unanswered. The cab turns and comes to a sudden stop, and he almost rolls onto the floor to join his phone

“C’mon,” Chas says, opening the door and trying to wrestle Constantine’s limp body out of the car, “get out of my cab, you tosser, you’re home.”

* * *

Chas takes pity on him and walks him all the way to his flat, helping unlock the door and pushing him gently through, telling him he should sleep it off as he tosses the keys in after Constantine.

Chas is right, he thinks, and he was right before; Charlie was just being nice. He’s not even entirely sure why he doubted it. Flopping, still half-dressed, onto the bed, he hits Charlie’s number and curls up on his side, resting the mobile on his face so he doesn’t have to hold it.

It rings for what seems to be forever, and his mind struggles to calculate the time in Hub City now. 10pm?

The phone clicks over to voicemail, Charlie’s voice politely requesting that he leave a message, and assuring him that he’ll respond as soon as possible.

Constantine makes a frustrated noise deep in his throat, and the mobile makes a satisfying crack as it impacts the far wall. He huffs and flops over onto his other side, arms crossed, glaring at the nightstand.

He lasts about five minutes before a needling feeling of guilt drags him out of bed. He scoops up the phone, more or less no worse for wear, and falls back onto the pillows.

“ _got home safe, off to bed xx_ ” he manages to text, before finally drifting off into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

He wakes up slowly and painfully, and as he lifts his head he feels his mobile peel away from his cheek and thud softly to the bed. He squints at it in confusion and betrayal, vaguely aware that its buzzing contributed to his premature emergence from sleep.

On the screen is a single text, a cheery message from Vodafone welcoming him back to the UK and reminding him about their fee structure. A blinding headache hits him then, almost simultaneous with a wave of nausea, and he curls up around the phone, groaning into the pillow.

* * *

He wakes up again to a more persistent buzzing. Glaring at his mobile, he shoots up in bed when he registers Charlie’s name on the screen. Cursing under his breath as his headache catches up to his sudden movement, it takes him a few tries to accept the call.

“Hello, love,” he says, finally.

“Hey,” Charlie’s voice crackles slightly, the connection obviously poor, “how are you? Did I wake you up?” There is a shuffling as Charlie presumably moves to look at his clock. “Isn’t it almost 6 there?”

“Er, yeah, I was just taking a nap. Jet lag and all.” He offers, clearing his throat.

Charlie hums, and for a long moment silence stretches between them.

“So, how was the flight?”

“Fine. Thought we were maybe going to crash halfway through.”

“What happened?”

“Flew through a storm, bit of turbulence. We didn’t crash, obviously,” he aims for a joking tone, but it seems strained even to his own ears.

“Of course. I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Constantine rubs his eye with his free hand, trying to convince his brain to think, to work faster. Before he can force any words out, Charlie is continuing.

“Did you have a good day after getting in?”

“Yeah, it were good. Flat’s still here.”

“Did you go out last night? I didn’t hear from you until late.”

He hesitates. “No. How about you, how was your day?”

“It was okay. Boring, to be honest, mostly just work.” Charlie takes a half breath at the end of his sentence, as if he’s going to continue, but doesn’t.

“Oh,” Constantine says, at a loss.

“Yeah.”

Charlie is clearly shuffling things around in the background.

“So, what are you doing now?”

“I’m at work, trying to find a document. I think I left it at home. You?”

“I’m in my flat.”

“Do you have something you should be doing? Some sort of case to work on? A poltergeist in... in Clapham or something?”

Charlie’s voice is light, but there is an edge of judgement to it. Constantine feels himself bristling.

“Well, I have to find it first, don’t I?” He says, a little more harshly than intended.

“Right, okay. Sorry for asking.” Charlie’s tone is clipped now, the tone he’s heard him use on criminals and uncooperative sources. “Any progress on that?”

“Won’t know until I find it.”

He knows he sounds like a petulant child, but he can’t stop his mouth from moving.

“Right.”

Charlie is clearly walking somewhere now; he can hear the echoes of his footsteps, the soft murmur of voices in the background.

“I guess you’re busy,” Constantine says into the silence.

“I have to go home to get the file, but I can keep talking.”

“I don’t want to be a bother,” he offers, waiting for Charlie to say he isn’t.

“Alright, well, I’ll text you later?”

“Sure. Ta ra, love.”

Charlie is silent for a moment, having apparently stopped walking.

“Bye,” he says finally, softly, and then he is gone.

Constantine stares at the phone in his hands. His head throbs dully, his stomach roiling. He can hear his heart pounding in his ears, and he can’t swallow around the lump in his throat.

“Fuck this,” he says aloud to the empty room, “I’m getting drunk.”

* * *

He’s staggeringly drunk, his mind swimming in alcohol, and Chas’ cab is swaying around him. He doesn’t quite remember how he got here. He realizes, with some horror, that he is speaking. 

“--he’s just so _gentle_ , Chas, and don’t get me wrong, I like it a little vanilla as much as the next bloke, but he treats me like I'm going to break at any moment, and--"

“John,” Chas breaks in, his voice slightly desperate, “I am _very_ sorry for asking about Vic again. Please, please stop this.”

And Constantine would like to stop, but his mouth keeps moving, words continue to spill out of him, and he can’t turn it off. 

“Like I’m a fuckin’ _bird_ ,” he mutters, half to himself, and he sinks into silence for a moment, thinks he can hear Chas sigh in relief. But it cannot last, he feels his mouth opening again, “And when I suck him off--”

* * *

It feels as though his head has barely hit the pillow when he is snapped back to wakefulness by the sound of his mobile buzzing, faintly playing a tune that he remembers selecting, but which his drunk and tired brain cannot place. He scoops it up groggily, doesn’t even look at the screen.

“What?” He snaps.

“John?” Charlie says.

Constantine groans, letting his head fall back against the pillows, holding the phone in front of his face to check the time.

“It’s half four in the morning, Charlie, what d’you want?”

There is silence on the other end of the line.

“It’s nothing,” Charlie finally says, “I’m fine. Sorry for waking you. Sleep well.”

The phone beeps softly to announce that Charlie has rung off. Constantine falls asleep with the mobile still in his hand.

* * *

It takes him some time, after he’s finally woken up, to pinpoint the source of the uncomfortable feeling in his chest. Finally some recollection of the previous night hits him, and he realises how worried Charlie had sounded, recognises for the first time the raggedness of his breathing.

Scrambling through the bedclothes, he fishes his mobile out of where it had gotten tangled in the sheets.

“ _hey love, sorry about last night, everything okay? xx_ ”

He sends the text and sits staring at his mobile for an embarrassing length of time, before remembering that it’s about 5am where Charlie is, and even Charlie sleeps sometimes. Flopping back onto the pillows, he stares blearily at the ceiling, contemplating a stain there.

He must fall back asleep, because he startles awake sometime later with his mobile still lying on his chest. Looking at the screen, he sees that Charlie had seen the message over half an hour ago, but still hasn’t responded. As he watches, the three bouncing dots appear, remain for a few seconds, and disappear again. This repeats several times while he grows ever more apprehensive.

“ _I’m fine._ ”

“ _And you were calling me at four in the morning to tell me that? x”_

“ _Just wanted to hear your voice.”_

Constantine curses at himself, thumbs hovering over the keyboard, trying to figure out what to say to make it clear that he was kidding. Before he can, his phone vibrates and another message appears.

“ _Sorry about that, John. I’ll leave the calling to you, don’t want to risk bothering you while you’re working._ ”

 _Oh_ , Constantine thinks. _Well, fuck you too, then_.

“ _okay thanks luv have a nice day xxx_ ”

There is a pause, breathless, as the three dots appear, disappear, appear again.

“ _You too.”_

He stares at the screen, absentmindedly tapping it every time it dims, giving Charlie a full minute before accepting that this is all he’s going to get.

A wave of irritation hits him then, and he feels his fingers moving, a need to write “whatever,” to get the last word, hits him, and he’s barely able to stop himself. He feels the anger and frustration crest within him, and he briefly considers sending a single “x,” but the wave recedes and he is left feeling empty, and in that moment of clarity he sees that it’s beneath him.

He groans, his head thudding back against the wall.

“I need a fucking drink.”

* * *

He finds himself alone in the pub, his thoughts no more clear and untroubled than they had been when he had awoken, despite the fact that he’s already several pints deep. He glares at his drink, clasped in both hands, silently maligning it for how it has betrayed him.

Someone arrives at the bar beside him, bumping into him hard in their exuberance, jarring the glass in his hand and sending lager slopping over his fingers, soaking into the cuffs of his coat. He curses loudly, rearing back, away from the growing puddle.

“Sorry about that, mate,” the man’s voice is cheery, an apologetic smile plastered on his gormless face before he does a double take, “Oh. Hullo, John. I didn’t know you were back in London.”

Mark eyes him, taking in the spilled lager on the bar and visibly shrinking back.

“Alright, Mark?” Constantine says, straightening, “looks like the first round’s on you, eh?” he gives his arms a shake, sending droplets flying, most landing on Mark’s trousers and shoes. “Where’s the rest of your lot, then?”

“Er, Des and Romesh are coming ‘round in a bit, they were helping Jasmine move into her new flat. She and her new flatmate might be coming as well, dunno yet. Asap’s at work ‘til late, you know what he’s like. And I guess you haven’t heard, Angelique’s gone back up to Glasgow. You remember that boyfriend of hers, the one that everybody knows was the bloke that robbed the Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh last year? Apparently he’s back in town.”

Mark gabbles it all out in a rush, waving futilely in an attempt to wrench the bartender’s attention away from the pretty blond he’s chatting up. He sighs.

“Didn’t realize I’d be getting a whole novel along with my beer,” Constantine says, but there’s no real heat in it. He feels an unaccustomed gladness to see Mark, which is probably just down to having any company other than his own thoughts. Regardless, he forces it down ruthlessly.

“You’re awfully cheery. What’s the story then, did you finally manage to convince somebody to shag you?”

He expects an instant retort, but Mark just flushes faintly and glances away. He opens his mouth to continue, weak spot identified, but he’s interrupted by a heavy hand landing on his shoulder. Glancing back, he sees the hand belongs to Des.

“Johnny!” Des says, shouldering his way in between Constantine and Mark, grinning, “I didn’t know you were back in London. How’s our Vic, then? You bring him along again?”

He peers around the pub expectantly, as if Charlie might suddenly drop down from the ceiling.

“No,” Constantine says, before realizing he is gritting his teeth. He forces his face to relax. Des doesn’t seem to have noticed, his grin undiminished. Mark, however, is eying him, the faintest quirk of his mouth making Constantine’s hackles begin to rise. He casts about for a change of subject. “Done helping Jasmine and her new flatmate already?”

Des’ eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“How d’you know about that?”

“Magic, innit?” Constantine grins, then tips his head towards Mark, “and loose lips over there, ‘course.”

“Oh, fair play,” Des says with a laugh, the spell broken, “yeah, all done, thank Christ. I dunno how many sequined jackets one woman needs, but I was clearly vastly underestimating. We’re celebrating our great triumph with a pint.”

He gestures at a booth, where Romesh and Jasmine are talking animatedly with a woman with straight dark hair to her shoulders and heavily bronzed skin, presumably the new flatmate. Somehow they’ve already acquired drinks, though the barman is still talking to the blond at the other end of the bar.

“Get your drinks and come join us, next round’s on me!” He says before drifting towards the booth, leaving Constantine and Mark alone again.

“So, done another runner, have you?” Mark asks, voice far too chummy.

Constantine, midway through draining the last of his pint, chokes on it, slamming the glass down onto the bar top as he hacks up a lung.

“’Course you have. Classic Constantine,” Mark snorts. The prick.

“Much better if I pull a classic Mark and be a total cunt, right?” Constantine says, glaring at Mark with watering eyes.

“So what’s the problem this time?” Mark asks, totally unphased, grinning a maddening little half-grin, “He’s not popped the question yet and it makes you feel cheap?”

“Get fucked, Mark.”

Constantine snatches up his almost-empty glass and stalks to the table, welcomed by a chorus of greetings from the group sitting there. He plasters an insincere smile on his face, and slides in next to the new girl. Mark follows soon after, saying nothing, the smirk still fixed on his face. Constantine studiously ignores him.

“Hello!” The new girl says, drawing the word out to an almost absurd degree, “I’m Claudia. And who are _you_?”

She smiles up at him from under her heavy bangs. The friendly type, he thinks, it’ll be easy to keep her on some innocuous topic all night long.

He smiles back, and opens his mouth to respond.

“Someone who’s having boy trouble. Aren’t you, Conjob?” Mark breaks in, grin growing, like the massive bloody bellend that he is.

“No I’m not,” Constantine responds instinctively, and then, recovering slightly, “seriously, get fucked, Mark.”

“Oh _no_ ,” Jasmine rounds on him with wide, concerned eyes, “what’s the matter with Vic?”

“Did you two split up?” Des asks, “Did you leave him?” His voice sinks to a whisper, “Did he leave you?”

“Nah, mate, don’t worry, nobody’s left anybody, this isn’t Mark’s first marriage.”

That kills the smile on Mark’s face, and replaces the fake one on Constantine’s face with the real thing. Everybody else at the table looks uncertain, however, all casting unreadable glances at one another.

"John-" Jasmine says, no doubt the beginning of some well-intentioned prying that Constantine would despise on a good day, let alone this evening. He turns to Claudia.

"You never expect the lads to turn into your mum, do you? And you're living with one of them, aren't you in for a treat."

He laughs.

"C'mon, you bunch of cocks, drink up, next round's on me."

* * *

“I just can’t figure out,” Constantine says, working very hard to enunciate, “if he’s the dickhead here... or if _I’m_ the dickhead?”

Everybody around the table nods solemnly.

“Well,” Des says, slow and thoughtful, “the bit where he’s got a file on you is pretty fucked up. Does he have files on all of us?”

There are murmurs of agreement around the table.

“But it seems like he’s just a bit of a nutter, ‘s not like he’s, y’know, doing it to control John. I dunno if that’s a good point or a bad point.” Jasmine’s brows are furrowed in thought.

“Right, but he let John get kidnapped twice,” Romesh says.

“No, _John_ let _himself_ get kidnapped twice,” Claudia says, looking up from the napkin she had been furiously writing on with what Constantine suspects to be eyeliner.

“Why would anyone let themselves be kidnapped twice?”

“Vic came to get him both times though,” says Jasmine, almost on top of Romesh’s question, “so that’s a point in his favour.”

She nods at Claudia, who attempts to squeeze the point onto her already illegible napkin.

“Look,” Mark breaks in, “he can’t be all dickhead, he stayed with you after you fucked off over here the last time and I was a cunt to him.”

Everybody nods again. Claudia moans with despair as the eyeliner pierces the napkin. 

“But then again,” Mark says, a glimmer in his eye, “who knows, maybe he did it because he realized that he’s got you wrapped around his dick, and now he’s slowly escalating while he prepares the dungeon. You should be grateful he can’t trap you with a baby, Conjob.”

He ignores Constantine’s scowl and the vocal condemnations offered by the group, though he doesn’t quite manage to dodge the wadded-up napkin tossed at his face by Des.

“I’m just saying!” he protests, “ I mean, does he have a side piece?”

“No!”

“Are _you_ the side piece?”

“No, you bellend.”

“’No’ for real, or, ‘no, because he swears he’ll divorce her, he just has to wait till the kids’re all grown up’?”

“No for real, you absolute muppet.”

“That’s a positive, then,” Mark says, tapping his finger on Claudia’s napkin.

She holds the smudged, bedraggled thing up off the table, gingerly trying to shake it out to full size.

“Maybe we need to create some sort of a chart,” Claudia suggests.

* * *

“Okay, okay, okay,” Jasmine says loudly, over the heated discussion currently taking place between Romesh and the recently-arrived Asap as to whether letting someone get possessed by a demon is better or worse than secretly researching and then bringing up someone’s traumatic past, “simmer down you lot, let’s get back to the chart.”

She hoists aloft the massive piece of cardboard that the bartender had acquired from somewhere. 

“So, in the pros column we can all agree, he’s well fit,” she gestures at the first point on the list, to murmurs of assent from the rest of the group. “And he’s not on the dole.”

She puts a big tick next to the word ‘job.’

“He somehow, inexplicably, puts up with Constantine, like, as a person,” Mark adds.

Jasmine glances guiltily at Constantine, but jots it down anyways.

They begin to call out more and more things, positives and negatives about Charlie, some of them so deeply personal that Constantine winces. When had he even mentioned half of this shite, he wonders, before casting a guilty look at the mostly empty pint glass in his hand. What number is this? He genuinely cannot remember.

“Oi, Johnny! Conjob! You still with us, mate?” Des’ hand waving in front of his eyes stirs Constantine from his reverie.

“Yeah, what, whassa matter?”

“Asap asked why you’re back,” Des relays, “y’know, why’re you here now?”

* * *

"-gone all day, and when he comes back he's all bitchy?!" Jasmine shouts in outrage, her cocktail sloshing dangerously as she uses the hand holding it to emphasize her point, "He's a proper dickhead, that's what he is!"

"Hey now," Asap says, tone placating and steady even as Mark clutches at his arm, laughing hysterically, "that was the poison though, right? We can't just say that--"

"He wasn't poisoned with the--the Dutch escort though, was he?" Des intervenes, slamming his fist on the table. "He was all, 'stay home and don't worry your pretty little head' that time, all, ‘I don’t trust you to know about my past,’ no poison needed!"

"Yeah!" Mark hiccups between laughing fits, "He's a true dickhead!"

Asap swats Mark's hands away, bestowing upon him a frown, before turning the full force of his disapproval back on the rest of the table.

"Look, I'm just saying, maybe we should--"

" _Fuck_ ‘maybe’!" Jasmine says, much too loudly, and she turns to Constantine, wobbling slightly, the makeshift chart that she is leaning on bending dangerously under her weight. "You, you deserve better, John!"

"You need to get laaaid," Claudia slurs, finally lifting her head off of the table; Constantine had begun to think she was unconscious.

"Hey, now," Asap repeats, slightly louder, "that's not on. We don’t actually really know anything about Vic, alright?"

"Vic's a saint," Mark says, nodding, before bursting into another fit of giggles.

"Know who's a saint?" Romesh says, before downing his beer. He grimaces slightly as he slams it on the table. "Prince Harry."

Asap’s eyes widen.

"He dressed up as a _Nazi_ , Mesh!"

Romesh waves his hand haphazardly through the air, as if he might be able to swat the accusations-- and incriminating pictures-- out of existence.

“Yeah, but he’s fit. And there’s a ginger who won’t betray you.”

“I cannot bloody believe I have to be the voice of reason about this,” Asap mutters to himself, voice almost drowned out by Mark’s fresh gales of laughter.

“You haveta go out and find yourself a nice boy or girl, forget all about this idiot!” Claudia says, as if it is some revelation.

“Maybe Prince Harry,” Romesh suggests, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“John, do not listen to these idiots,” Asap says, “what you need is to go home and sleep it off.”

“You need to go out and puuuuuull!” Jasmine says over Asap, followed by cheers from the rest of the table.

“Yeah!” says Des, attempting to high five Jasmine and managing only to miss spectacularly and twat Mark in the face. Jasmine, for her part, is finally done in by her stiletto heels, and collapses on top of Claudia and Des.

“Go out and pull!” she says again from under the table, voice slightly muffled.

“Right,” Constantine says, standing suddenly and hardly swaying at all, “right, I’m gonna... I should go.”

He pitches himself towards the exit, pursued through the door by drunken encouragement from most of the group, dire warnings from Asap, and Mark’s seemingly endless laughter.

* * *

He makes it about ten steps to the nearest alleyway before he’s on his hands and knees, hurling what little food he managed to eat into the gutter.

“I’m having flashbacks to our youth, John,” a familiar voice says, and then Chas is squatting next to him, pulling him back and propping him against a nearby wall. “Looks like you’ve been having a good night.”

“Not really,” Constantine says, wiping his mouth and realizing too late that it’s with the napkin that Claudia had written on. He squints at it, trying to figure out if the eyeliner is smeared on his face now too.

“What’s that about?” Chas asks, sitting next to him and looking at the insane scribblings.

“I dunno. Something about trying to pull Prince Harry.”

“He just got married, John.”

Constantine lets his head thump back against the bricks and breathes a deep sigh.

“All the gingers betray me,” he says.

There is silence for a long moment.

“Okay, John.” 

The silence returns, stretching longer this time. Fumbling in his coat pocket, Constantine pulls out his phone to check the time. On the screen there is a notification that he’s missed a text. Squinting at it, his heart drops when he realizes it’s a text from Charlie, wishing him goodnight.

His limbs are animated by an uncomfortable wave of feeling that he does not particularly care to address, and he is up on his feet far too quickly. The world takes a few crucial seconds to catch up, but Chas’ steadying hand is on his upper arm before anything too catastrophic can befall him.

“Take me to the station, Chas," he says, when he feels it is safe to open his mouth again. 

"What station? And why? I can just drive you to your flat."

"I need better friends. I'm going to Liverpool."

"You're still drunk. Nobody is going to sell you a ticket in this state."

"This is an emergency."

"Is it, though?"

"Fine. _Fiiiiine_. I'll just walk there"

“To the station?”

“To Liverpool.”

He squints at the street, decides which way looks vaguely more north, and takes a step in that direction. Chas catches him by the arm again, hauling him back into the alley.

"Christ, okay, look, I'll drive you to Liverpool, so you can sober up on the way. Then, when you change your mind midway through the trip, you won't be arrested for throwing up on a conductor."

Constantine falls onto Chas, burying his face in Chas’ neck, letting all of his weight hang off of Chas’ shoulders.

“You’re the best, Chas.”

Chas pats him on the back, and begins dragging him back towards the street.

“Yeah, I am. Don’t throw up in my cab.”

* * *

Lying on the backseat of Chas’ cab, Constantine stares at the roof as the streetlights along the motorway periodically illuminate the car, before plunging it back into darkness. He thinks he might be sliding in and out of consciousness, but it is difficult to tell, what with the lulling monotony of all long car journeys, and the fuzziness of his own mind.

They’ve been driving for maybe an hour when the car turns and slows, eventually coming to a stop. Constantine tries to open his eyes, but his eyelids are so heavy he can’t manage it. He hears Chas turn in his seat to look at him.

“John,” Chas says, softly, “you awake?”

Constantine grunts in acknowledgement.

“We’re near Uxbridge.”

“That’s not Liverpool.”

“No, well spotted. I just--” Chas takes a deep breath before continuing- “do you really want to go to Liverpool?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Either take me to Liverpool or let me out here. I’ll walk.”

He fumbles blindly for the handle until Chas slaps his hand away from the door.

“Alright, alright, Jesus, just... let me call Renee, alright?”

He doesn’t wait for Constantine to respond, opening his own door and sliding out into the night. Constantine’s eyes are briefly assaulted through his eyelids by the car’s light, before the door closes and he is mercifully returned to darkness.

He can hear faint speaking through the window, Chas’s voice staying calm and steady throughout what must be a message being left on an answering machine. No bloody way Renee would let Chas drive Constantine to Liverpool without a fight.

Eventually the voice fades and Constantine begins to wonder if Chas is abandoning him here and going to get a hotel for the night. Maybe he’s going to wait until Constantine has fallen asleep to drive them back to London.

He forces his eyes open and keeps them wide, just in time to be re-assaulted by the light on the roof of the car. He squeezes his eyes shut immediately, them doubles up in pain as something heavy and plastic smacks him right below his ribcage.

“I got you some water, you idiot,” Chas says as he slides back into the car, “drink it so you’ll be less of a misery for your poor sister.”

* * *

He must fall asleep again, as he’s shaken awake by the car jolting over uneven ground before finally coming to a rest. There is silence for several seconds, and then Chas’ seat leans back, nearly crushing Constantine’s knees.

“Oi!” He shouts in protest, scooting backwards.

“Sorry John.”

“Is this Liverpool?” Constantine asks, hauling himself up to squint at the darkness surrounding the layby they’ve pulled into, “this doesn’t look like Liverpool.”

“No, we’re near Birmingham. I’m gonna have a kip before we carry on, since I’d rather not die in a fiery wreck just because I had to drive your sorry arse halfway across the country in the middle of the night.”

“We can’t sleep in a car, Chas. I refuse to sleep in a car.”

“Oh? And what were you doing for the past hour, then?”

Constantine works very hard to come up with a retort.

"And since when do you have _standards_? Just scoot over and let me sleep, John."

"No! Fuck's sake, Chas, I'm not fifteen anymore. I refuse to sleep in the middle of the road. Just... I can't believe I'm saying this, but let's go to Birmingham. I'll pay for a hotel."

* * *

Constantine wakes up slowly, becoming aware of the sound of someone showering in the next room, and the gentle voice of a newsreader on the telly. It takes him a moment to realize that the speaker’s voice is a bland, inoffensive Home Counties accent, and he feels a lump in his throat that he cannot explain. Blinking blearily at the light coming in through the curtains, he finds his memories of the previous night’s events even harder to recall through the pounding of his head.

Flashes of the pub and a lot of very bad decisions, and encouragement to make worse ones. Begging Chas to drive him to Liverpool for reasons that had seemed compelling at the time. Insisting on paying for a hotel with Chas’ Tesco Clubcard. Insisting on staying in _Birmingham_.

He shudders.

“So,” Chas says, emerging in a swirl of steam, “you didn’t die in your sleep.”

Constantine groans into the pillows, which Chas seems to accept as an answer.

“Still dead set on going to Liverpool, are ya?”

“Almost there already. Don’t want to have wasted trip. _Birmingham_ , Chas,” Constantine grates out.

“Right. Well, Renee isn’t likely to get any more pissed off, might as well get you where you’re going.”

"Like she ever _isn’t_ pissed off. C’mon, this is a chance to get a break from the ball and chain. She won't even notice."

“Oh, she’s _noticed_.” Chas’ voice is deadly calm, “She called already. Count yourself lucky you were dead to the world, my son, or I’d’ve let her tell you just what she thinks of this little crisis you’re having.”

Constantine shivers at the thought, finally dragging himself upright and fishing around on the end table for his mobile. Blinking blearily at the screen, he notices a new text from Charlie.

" _Whenever you get your phone back, you'll be happy to know that I still don't have a mullet_."

Now fully awake, he opens his messages, feeling trepidation coursing through his veins as he discovers several that he doesn’t remember sending.

“ _Good night xx,”_ the texts begin, nice and simple, and then it all spirals very rapidly out of hand. “ _Oh wait I bet you’re asleep already._

_Did you wash all the gel out of your hair? It’s all a mess when you don’t._

_Gets all wild the next morning_

_But when you wash it it’s all fluffy when you wake up_

_I hope you never cut your hair because I like playing with your stupid curls when I can’t sleep, you stupid curly man._

_But don’t get a perm_

_Too gay_

_And so 80s_

_Oh god don’t get a mullet I know how you yanks love a mullet_

_Bet Hub City’s full of mullets and confederate flags_

_Sorry I didn’t mean that_

_Well, definitely about the mullet thing_

_Chas agrees, probably_

_He also snores too much_ _._ ”

There is a gap of about ten minutes, and then another, slightly more coherent text.

“ _Hi Vic, this is Chas. I’m confiscating John’s mobile now. Good night._ ”

“ _Thanks for taking care of him, Chas_ ,” comes Charlie’s reply, followed several hours later by the text that had first caught his eye.

Constantine flops forward again, groaning even more loudly into his pillow.

“Why didn’t you take my mobile off me earlier, Chas?” He asks, into the pillow

“I was trying to sleep, you knob. And you fought tooth and nail for it. I shoulda just let you keep it, it was bloody hilarious.”

He chucks a pillow at Chas and misses. Chas scoffs and ducks back into the bathroom, shutting the door and locking it.

Looking again at the mobile in his hand, Constantine lets the screen darken and then go black, staring at Charlie’s last message. He wakes it up again, watches the screen fade once more. Just as it’s about to go black, he finds himself hitting the button to call Charlie.

It's only when the line connects that he realizes the time, realizes Charlie is probably still sleeping. It’s too late to hang up, he hears an intake of breath on the other side. 

"Me mates stole me mobile," he says, before Charlie can speak. 

"And they sent those same messages to everybody in your contact list, right?"

Charlie's voice is warm, amused, and there's not a hint of having just awoken in it. Constantine glances suspiciously at the alarm clock on the night table. 

"Obviously. Isn't it about four in the morning where you are?" he asks. 

Charlie sighs, long and low, the line crackling. 

"You know the party never stops when I’m around," he says, and Constantine can hear the edge of exhaustion creeping in.

“Hub City never rests, does it?”

“Only the bad guys.”

“So the whole city sleeps like a baby, then?”

“Hey!” Charlie says, “It’s a good city, you know.”

There’s something in his voice that Constantine can’t quite identify, something like hurt and offence.A sudden uncertainty grips Constantine, putting him immediately on edge, his whole body tensing.

“Sorry,” he barely manages to say. His throat has gone dry.

There is silence on the other end of the line.

“You know what they call a kindergarten in Hub City?” Charlie finally says.

“What?” Constantine asks cautiously.

“Juvie.”

Constantine laughs, a slightly brittle, uncontrolled bark that rolls into paroxysms of laughter that he’s powerless to stop. The joke was so unexpected that he was unprepared for his own reaction, a reaction that was enhanced by the feeling of tension that is even now evaporating from his gut. On the other end of the call he hears Charlie laughing too, a far gentler laugh, more a reaction to Constantine than any amusement at the joke itself.

“It’s good to hear you laugh,” Charlie says, when Constantine finally regains the ability to breathe properly. “You’ve--” Charlie pauses, then continues, “well, what are you up to?”

“Chas and I’re heading to Liverpool.”

“Oh, did you find a case up there?” Charlie sounds genuinely interested.

“No,” he says, forcing the petulance from his tone.

“Are you visiting your sister?”

“Yeah. Wanted to get out of London for a bit.”

He thinks of the previous night and shudders.

“That’ll get her off your back about visiting for a few months at least.”

Constantine snorts. “As if. I’ll buy some presents on my way in, maybe I can convince her this is my Crimbo visit.”

Charlie whistles. “Look at you, playing the long game. Could you maybe get them something from me too? I’ll pay you back, of course.”

“You want to get Christmas presents for me family?”

“I mean, I’m not really sure how else to convince people to like me. Bribery’s pretty much all I’ve got going for me.”

“Oh yeah? Surely I’m due a bribe, then.”

“I’ve bought you a lot of Chinese food, doesn’t that count?”

“Was that my payoff? Well fuck me, Charlie, you were overcharged. I can be bought for a half dozen McNuggets and some chips.”

“I don’t know, I feel like it was a bargain.”

Constantine coughs uncomfortably, something jamming itself in his throat.

“Well, clearly it’s better if I do the shopping. You’re going to get Black Sabbath’s _Paranoid_. Vinyl.”

“For who, Tony?”

“For Cheryl, fuck Tony. We’re getting fuck all for Tony.”

Charlie laughs again, and Constantine can almost see him in that moment, his face open and happy, his blue eyes twinkling.

“You know, John,” Charlie says, his voice still warm, still smiling, “I’m just going to say it, I really--” he cuts off, and Constantine can hear the sound of movement, a door closing, a woman’s voice.

“Charlie?”

“Sorry, John,” Charlie’s tone is all business now, “I have to go, Myra’s awake.”

“Who is--?” Constantine says, and then he remembers precisely who she is, but the phone is already beeping to indicate that Charlie is gone. “Wait, she’s _what_?” he says, to the air.

Glaring at the phone in his hand, he takes a deep breath.

 _Okay_ , he thinks, _this is all fine, let’s not get carried away. He’s just hanging out with his ex. Having sleepovers with her. The ex he’s still good friends with. At four in the morning. On a night when he hasn’t slept. And before I left we didn’t have sex for a week, and fucking hell this is not fine._

His hand tightens on the phone, and he feels his teeth gritting uncontrollably.

“Who was that, then, our Vic?” Chas asks, re-emerging and interrupting his spiralling thoughts.

Constantine makes an unholy noise in his throat, flopping back onto the bed, flinging one arm over his eyes.

“I’ll take that as a yes. What’ve you done this time?”

“What have I _—_ what have _I_ done?” he shouts, sitting upright. “ _I’ve_ done nowt! He’s the one having his exes ‘round at all bloody hours of the night!”

“Wait,” Chas says, stopping at the foot of the bed, his brow furrowing, “is _that_ what’s going on? He’s playing away?”

Constantine hesitates, takes a deep breath and lets it all out as one long sigh.

“No.”

“Right. Then what--”

“I don’t think he is. I don’t know. No.”

Chas sighs. “Okay, let’s go back a step. What’s going on here? Why do you think he’s with his ex?”

“He just told me!” Constantine snaps and, at Chas’ confused expression, adds, “That he’s with her. That they are in the same place right now.”

“So... alright, they’re in the same place. Wouldn’t it be more suspicious if he _weren’t_ telling you that? That doesn’t really prove anything.”

“They’re still _friends_ , Chas. That’s weird. Isn’t that weird?”

“It’s not exactly unheard of. Just ‘cause all your exes are dead, or actively trying to kill you, or both, doesn’t mean everybody’s are.”

Constantine scoffs, ignoring the jab. “It’s four in the bloody morning where he is!”

“At the risk of making this worse, you realise he could cheat on you at any time of the day, right?”

Constantine crosses his arms over his chest, scowling at the phone in his lap, not answering.

“Just to be clear,” Chas continues after the silence stretches, “you don’t actually know, or even really think, he’s sleeping with her, yeah? You’re just driving yourself mental for no reason.”

“I’m not driving myself mental!”

“Of course not, you’re the very picture of reasonable right now.”

“I’m not-- I just-- whatever. I have to take a shower.” He rolls himself out of bed and stalks to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

They’ve been driving in frosty silence for about twenty minutes when Chas finally dares to speak again.

“You’re still thinking about Vic, aren’t you?”

“No I’m not, sod off.” Constantine says, sliding further down in his seat. This pushes his knees up to his eyelevel due to the way he’s got them resting on the dashboard. Chas casts him a disapproving look. Constantine moves his boots around to leave more dirty footprints on the PVC.

“Okay,” Chas says, rolling his eyes.

“I don’t think he’s cheating on me. Why would he? Just because he’s hanging out with his ex. The one who he was with for years, the one that he still talks to all the time. Right?”

“Right.”

“Bet she never even thought he was cheating on her. She lives there. Maybe they lived together. They’re in the same city, either way. Could spend all the time they wanted together. Who cares if he’s working all the time, _she_ would never complain about that. She probably loved that he was so dedicated. _She_ could just visit his office whenever she wanted. They’re even spending time together _now._ ”

“And yet she’s his ex. That’s for a reason, I bet.”

“What if it’s for some bullshit reason, like their _careers_ or something. And now he can date whoever he wants, and it’s better than dating some itinerant magician. Better than dating a man,” he mutters the final part almost to himself, surprised to hear himself say it.

“John, that’s--”

“Bet they didn’t break up because of sex.”

“ _John._ ”

“Bet she _loved_ all the attention. She didn’t complain--”

“John, seriously, what the fuck is going on with you? Do you not trust him?”

Constantine’s mouth clicks shut. He keeps his eyes fixed on the road.

“Yes,” he says, finally, “I trust him.”

“Then what is the problem here? Fuck’s sake John, talking to you now is like trying to get answers out of Renee when she’s pissed off.”

Constantine scowls at the comparison. “There’s no problem. Everything’s fine.”

“Clearly.”

Constantine doesn’t answer, just stares out the window at the scenery whipping past. Chas sets to muttering almost inaudibly to himself. Constantine, for his part, lets himself slip further and further below the surface of the morass of his thoughts.

He knows, on some level, that he’s being unreasonable. There is a part of him that is pounding its hands against the glass, desperately begging him to stop this, in between calling him a bellend.

So what if Charlie is spending time with Myra, that rational side shouts. Charlie’s a grown man, he can decide who he wants to spend his time with, without having to justify himself to the fuckup he happens to be shagging. Hell, Constantine himself is off in England doing who knows what with who knows who, and is Charlie whinging about it? He's completely fine with it, completely unconcerned. And why would he be concerned? Why should he care? It's not like he's going to lose anything important, is he? No, he has better things to think about. Like Myra.

Charlie doesn’t talk about her much, but when he does, Constantine can tell that he’s still fond of her. It’s in his eyes, the way the corners of his mouth curl up when he mentions that he had an interview with Myra today, or Myra called to let him know about an upcoming political event. She’s in politics, he knows, and clearly accomplished and even-tempered and stable and very unlikely to get Charlie killed and sent to Hell.She’ll be just excellent for when Charlie eventually gets all _this_ out of his system and decides to settle down.

Maybe they’re working together, there’s always some political bullshit happening in Hub City that puts the whole wretched place on the brink of destruction. Something that always comes dangerously close to killing Charlie. They’re probably getting some important work done, and what’s he doing? Sulking, and complaining and forcing Chas to drive him to Liverpool. And he’s probably ruining everything, like he always does.

He thinks about the conversations he and Charlie have had since he’s been back, and every word is another drop of poison on his tongue, every word is just another barb that he tosses out for no reason. Even their last conversation, when things had finally felt normal, it had all come tumbling down. And why? Whose fault is that? His own, and he knows it. It’s just not in him to accept good things, things that are better than he deserves. He’s incapable of having something good in his life without twisting it, twisting it so far, so out of shape that it can’t help but break.

His mind goes back to Hub City. Charlie had been so affected by the poison, and what had Constantine done? He’d blamed him. Thought about abandoning him. He’d thought him capable of–- he had _twisted_ his actions, is what he had done, when all he should be is grateful.

Everything was going so well, or so he can convince himself, and here he is, run off to another country, working himself up over something that isn’t even happening. _He_ should _cheat on you, you’re being insane_ , he thinks.

_But what if he is?_

_He isn’t. Because he’s a good person. Unlike you. You cunt._

He is stirred from his increasingly miserable ruminations by his phone buzzing in his pocket. After some rearrangement of his limbs, he manages to fish it out, and proceeds to stare wordlessly at it for a solid minute, his brow furrowed and mouth slightly agape.

“Doing alright over there, John?” Chas asks, “What are you looking at?”

“It’s a text. From Vic.”

“See, look at that, he’s texting you, that has to be a good sign. What’s it say?”

“‘Don’t go to Manchester,’” he says, holding the phone up so Chas can see, though Chas doesn’t take his eyes off the road.

“Well, I mean, he’s not wrong, is he?” Chas has the faintest smile on his lips, “Does he give any particular reason?”

“Nothing yet,” Constantine says. There are no moving dots on the screen below the enigmatic message.

“Still, see, he cares!” Chas says, voice far too optimistic.

“He also cares about his ex,” Constantine mutters, crossing his arms across his chest.

“For Christ’s sake, John, so he didn’t block her number, that’s _fine_.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, good.”

They sit in silence for half a minute.

“You should hear how he talks about her,” Constantine cannot stop himself from saying.

“Does he talk about her as much as you do?” Chas asks, irritation lacing his words.

Constantine scowls at him, then hesitates. “No. Never. Once or twice.”

“I can see why you’re so worried.”

“He said she was “one of the good ones,” Chas.”

“A good what?”

“Politician. I think she might be the mayor or something.”

“A good politician? That’s not exactly a high bar to clear in Hub City, is it? Or anywhere, actually.”

Constantine snorts. “No, well, it’s more about the way he says it. All full of admiration.”

It’s Chas’ turn to snort. “Look, you can admire someone and not want to fuck them, alright? You wouldn’t fuck Johnny Rotten, would ya?”

“I would absolutely fuck a young Johnny Rotten,” Constantine says without hesitation. 

“But not _I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter_ Johnny Rotten, right?”

There is an edge of concern in Chas’ voice.

“No. But, to be fair, I also don’t admire him.”

Chas nods thoughtfully. They settle into silence again.

“Stop. At the next city,” Constantine says suddenly, gesturing at the sign advertising the upcoming exit to Newcastle-Under-Lyme.

“What? Why?” Chas asks, his voice acquiring just a touch of hope.

“I need to find the nearest music store that isn’t an HMV.”

“Here?” Chas asks, “We’re in Staffordshire.”

“What, the Midlands don’t have music?”

Chas mutters something under his breath, something that sounds an awful lot like “you absolute wanker,” but he obeys nonetheless.

* * *

Constantine juggles a bouquet of flowers and several poly bags full of gifts as he exits the car, struggling desperately to inhale as much of the cigarette as he can before they reach Cheryl’s front door.

“Why do you never visit again?” Chas asks, surveying the neat, quiet neighbourhood that surrounds Cheryl’s neat, quiet terrace house, “is it that classic Constantine ‘everybody I love dies’ bit, or is she a member of the ‘I hate John Constantine’ club now?”

Constantine shoots him a glare, undercut no doubt by the desperate pulling on his cigarette. Before they have gone more than five steps up the drive, the door opens. There is an unholy noise, perhaps that of a cat dying, and then Constantine finds himself being nearly bowled over by a very enthusiastic hug. He quickly spits out the cigarette, and brings up his overladen arms to awkwardly pat Cheryl on the back, casting a look begging for help at Chas over her shoulder.

“Well, that answers that,” Chas says, laughing and not moving to help in any way.

“Er, alright, luv?” Constantine says, finally regaining some balance.

“John, you muppet, why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” Cheryl says, holding him out at arms length and looking him over critically. “You look an absolute show, are you on one?” She finally notices Chas. “Oh, hiya, Chas, it’s lovely to see you again! Thanks for bringing him. Has he not been taking care of himself?” Her voice takes on a dangerous edge.

“He has not,” Chas says, looking at Constantine with something like victory in his eyes. Constantine curses at him internally.

Cheryl tuts. “’Course he hasn’t,” she begins, then notices the flowers he’s barely managing to hold by the tips of fingers.

“These are for you, Cheryl,” he thrusts them at her, in the hopes that it will stem the tide, “brought you and our Gemma some prezzies, like.”

She takes them from him cautiously, eyes narrowed.

“Right, what’ve you done?”

“What? I’ve done nowt!” he says, “I mean, I was thinking maybe I could stay here for a few days, and I didn’t call to ask, like...”

“Oh chicken, you know that’s never a bother,” she smiles for a moment, making the slide back to suspicion all the more alarming, “so what is it, then? C’mon, cough it up.”

“Give over Cheryl, it’s nothing!”

Cheryl regards him coolly for what feels like an hour.

“Well, I’ll get it out of you eventually,” she says, suddenly all sweetness, “come ‘ead, you two, I’ll put the kettle on.”

* * *

Watching Cheryl bustle around the kitchen, chattering about Gemma and Tony and how her life is going, Constantine feels surprisingly at peace, as if he can relax for the first time in days.

“Right,” Cheryl says, setting two mismatched mugs in front of Constantine and Chas.

They both wait for her to continue, but she just leans back against the sink, staring at Constantine over the lip of her own mug. Constantine cuts his eyes over to Chas, who is looking back at him with an equal mix of confusion and concern.

“Er--” Constantine begins.

“Chas,” Cheryl says, suddenly, “what’s wrong with him?”

“Don’t.” Constantine says, trying for a hard, cold tone. His hands are clenching rhythmically on either side of his tea.

Chas snorts, staring at Constantine as he answers, “Your guess is as good as mine, Cheryl. All I know is that it’s about Vic, who isn’t cheating on him. Other than that...” he leans back in his chair and shrugs.

“What’s wrong with Vic, then?” Cheryl’s voice is sharp, her eyes sharper, boring into Constantine’s own. He is spared from answering by the sudden opening of the kitchen door.

“Love, there’s a taxi in-- oh. Hello, John.”

Tony halts just inside the doorway, his dim eyes moving between the three people before him, clearly struggling to make sense of it all.

“Tony,” Constantine says in acknowledgement.

“John’s come to stay for a few days.”

Cheryl’s tone is light, but there is an obvious and implied finality to the words.

“Oh. Okay.” Tony’s brow furrows slightly. “Do you think we could maybe talk in the other room?”

The door has hardly closed behind them, and already Constantine can detect the definite cadence of an argument, carried out in tones just low enough that it is barely below the threshold at which he and Chas could listen in.

“So it’s not just my marriage that you have this effect on, then,” Chas says, almost conversationally.

Constantine throws him a sour look, sliding down in his chair a little bit, unable to quite shake the very unwelcome feeling of guilt at bringing trouble into his sister’s life. _Can’t even go home without fucking something up_ , he thinks, and then realizes this is Tony he’s feeling bad about. He begins to contemplate instead if he should start chanting for divorce, whether Chas would join him in this noble endeavour.

Before he can ask, Cheryl returns, a smile fixed just a little too desperately on her face.

“Well, Tony’s off to visit his parents for a few days,” she says, still smiling.

Tony follows her in a moment later.

“Hey, John,” he says, “d’you think you can do me a favour, maybe pinky promise you won’t murder my daughter, or sacrifice her to a demon while I’m gone? Or is that asking too much?”

Constantine feels as though he has been struck, all of the air bursting out of his lungs. He opens his mouth, hoping for a smart remark to suddenly leap to mind, at least a perfunctory ‘sod off,’ but his mind stays blank, his mouth gaping noiselessly.

“Oi!” Chas says, rising from his chair so quickly that his legs force the table up and backwards by several inches, “you shut your fucking mouth.”

“Tony!” Cheryl barks at almost the same moment, storming across the kitchen, seizing Tony by the shoulders and pushing him out of the room, “go get your shit together, you arl arse.”

She slams the door behind him, and the kitchen descends into a long and uncomfortable silence. Constantine keeps his eyes fixed on his tea, watching the tea bag that he’s left to steep too long bob to the surface.

Chas resettles himself in his seat, still glowering at the door through which Tony had disappeared. Cheryl moves around behind Constantine, lightly brushing his shoulders as she passes, not reacting to the way he instinctively hunches up against her touch.

“So,” Cheryl’s voice is sickly sweet, “you’ll never guess what I bought, John,” she pokes him several times in the ribs, just hard enough to hurt. “Guess,” she whines, poking harder.

“What,” his voice is as flat as the tea he can’t tear his eyes away from.

“Jaffa cakes! I even splashed out and got the raspberry ones from Tesco. D’you two fancy some Jaffa cakes?”

She stands up, begins fishing around in a cupboard. Constantine doesn’t look up, keeping his gaze fixed on the thin film forming over the top of his tea. He can feel Chas’ eyes on him, but he doesn’t acknowledge him.

“Do you want a Jaffa cake, Chas?”

There is a grating edge to her overly sunny tone, demanding that others fall in line.

“Er, sure, sounds great.”

“ _Great_. John, do you want any?”

Constantine assumes they’re looking at him, waiting for a response. He pulls his arms tighter across his middle and doesn’t look up.

“Guess we’re eating all these Jaffa cakes between the two of us, Chas.”

Constantine hesitates.

“I want Jaffa cakes,” he finally says.

He eats his allotted Jaffa cakes in silence, doing his best to feign positivity under Cheryl’s hawk-like glare. He is aching for a cigarette, but isn’t willing to risk leaving Chas and Cheryl alone together to talk about him. At some point Tony returns to the kitchen to bid farewell to Cheryl, but she hurries him out of the room almost before Constantine can register his presence.

Cheryl and Chas make a heroic effort at conversation, until eventually Cheryl glances at her oven clock.

“Getting on towards 3,” she says, “I’m going to have to pick up Gemma soon. Tony’ll have taken the car, so could I trouble you for a ride, Chas?”

“Of course, no bother.”

Constantine can feel them both struggling not to look at him, struggling with what to say. He frowns, eyes moving between them. Cheryl worries her lip between her teeth, much as she would whenever dad came home late and angry, right before she would ask Constantine if he wanted to play hide-and-seek. His jaw clenches, he can feel acid in the back of his throat. She's worried about him. They both are.

He crosses his arms over his chest, glaring at the table.

Do they think he’s going to get pissed out of his mind in the fifteen minutes it'll take them? That he's going to set the house on fire? That he'll open a portal to Hell in Cheryl’s living room?

He doesn't speak, doesn't look at them, just sinks further into his chair. If they’re going to be worried about leaving him home alone, then he’s going to make them say it. He won't make it easy for them.

_When do you ever?_

“Why don’t you come too, John,” Cheryl finally says, “Gemma is going to be well chuffed to see you.”

* * *

Constantine leans back against the cab, one foot propped up on the wheel behind him. Cheryl is texting furiously to his left, occasionally glancing up at the horde of children pouring forth from the school. Sometimes she darts a quick look to the side, at him. He pretends not to notice.

Inside the car he can barely hear the rising and falling of Chas’ latest discussion with Renee. Nothing unusual, from what little he can hear, just the same old shrill nagging that she’s well known for. She’s probably like that all the time, not just when Constantine steals her husband away.

He sighs, breathing out a cloud of smoke, watching it slowly dissipate into the air. To his right, someone coughs sharply and then, after a moment’s pause, coughs again, clearly aiming to attract attention. Turning his head, he finds a mum glaring at him. Seeing that she has gotten his attention she coughs again, loud and false, eyes fixed significantly on his cigarette.

He takes a long, deep drag, and blows a stream of smoke right in her face.

She splutters indignantly, but before she can say anything a shriek splits the air.

“Uncle John!” Gemma comes barrelling out of a crowd of children and hurls herself into his spread arms.

“Hello, luv,” he says, picking her up and giving her a quick twirl, grinding out the cigarette with the heel of his shoe in the process. She giggles, delighted, clinging tightly to his neck.

“Mum said you wouldn’t be back for _ages_!” Gemma says when they come to a stop, blithely selling out her mother’s lack of faith, “Did you bring me anything?”

“’Course I did! I brought you a snow globe from Newcastle!” he produces it as if from out of the air, handing it to an enchanted Gemma, who begins shaking the globe vigorously. “Under Lyme,” he adds, slightly less loudly. “It’s from Vic and I both.”

Cheryl shoots him a searching look that he does his best to ignore.

“Oh,” Gemma says, hands stilling, “is he still in Newcastle? Are you gonna go back to him soon?”

“He’s in America, luv.”

“And he couldn’t get me something from there?” Gemma pouts.

“Gemma,” Cheryl says, soft and admonishing.

Constantine laughs. “Trust me luv, you wouldn’t want anything from where he lives.”

“Okay,” Gemma says, clearly not convinced, and then a smile splits her face once more as she looks at the globe in her hands. “Thank you for the prezzie, Uncle John!”

“Gemma, don’t you think you should ask Uncle John to say thank you to Vic too?”

“Thank you Vic, for letting Uncle John get me a prezzie,” Gemma says, voice flat.

He laughs, but his heart is suddenly not in it.

He thinks of Charlie, his mind going to when they’d been there together. He had seemed delighted, much more so than he had in London, dragging him onto the hop-on hop-off bus despite Constantine’s protestations, staring at him after every new piece of information the guide had given as if seeking confirmation.

“I can’t believe how beautiful this city is,” he had said, staring up open-mouthed at the stained glass of the Philharmonic Dining Rooms.

Constantine had raised his eyebrow. “Oh, so you thought it’d be shite?”

Charlie had laughed, as if Constantine wasn’t being a sarcastic little shit, going out of his way to twist everything he was saying to him.

He sets Gemma down on her feet, glancing back at the primary as he does so. Almost against his will, his eyes are drawn to one of the windows on the second floor. A woman is looking down at them with one hand pressed flat against the pane, though she is hard to see against the reflections on the glass. He squints, able to make out that she’s wearing what looks to be a surgical mask and a dark blue shirt. Somewhere, deep down, he thinks that he knows her. She shifts, and he realizes that she is trying to open the window. He knows she is looking right at him, but he cannot see her eyes.

The window slides up, jerkily, just an inch or so, and her pale fingers jam themselves into the opening, moving like the legs of a spider seeking to gain entry into a room from under a door.

“Oi,” Chas shouts, startling Constantine and making him look around, “we leaving or what, mate?”

Gemma and Cheryl are already in the cab, Cheryl working hard to get Gemma buckled into her seat. Constantine looks back at the window. It is empty, but the sash remains raised.

* * *

It’s surprisingly easy to shrug off his lingering uneasiness and discomfort when they cross the threshold of Cheryl’s house. It’s even easier to slip back into the familiar sibling banter that he and Cheryl have always had, with her bossing him around the kitchen as he helps her prepare the tea.

“Are we having any duff, queen?” He asks, tossing the potatoes in the oven tray with the rest of the roast.

Cheryl shakes her head. “No duff for tea, ‘s too much for our Gemma.”

“Eee, ‘s just scran, innit?”

“Sack it, la’.”

“Alright, alright, I’m just pure devoed is all. Anyroad–“ He stops in his tracks, gaze falling on Chas, who is sitting at the table, staring at them wide-eyed. “Y’alright, luv?”

Chas blinks.

“I never have any idea what you’re saying when you go all North, John.”

“Aw, heard that, queen? Better speak all posh for Mr. I-think-Tottenham-Hale-is-the-North.”

Cheryl smacks Constantine’s arm. “Don’t be mean to Lord London, chicken, it’s already so hard for him to mingle with the common people.”

“Alright, alright, I don’t know why you think I’m so posh. I’m just saying you’re all borderline incomprehensible.”

“Oh yeah, I don’t know why we’d think that, you’re working _so hard_. Please, Chas, I beg you, stop helping out in the kitchen, you’re just doing _so much_.”

Chas blushes slightly, readying himself to get out of the chair and actually _do_ something, but Cheryl gestures at him to stop in a vaguely threatening way.

“No. You’re a guest. You stand up, I break your legs.” She smacks Constantine’s arm again. “You, put that tray in the oven.”

He rolls his eyes, groaning theatrically, and Gemma giggles from her seat at the table, where she’s drawing what she had described as a reimagining of Peppa Pig as a dragon.

The routine of it, the mundanity, is oddly comforting. Maybe it’s because of how familiar it all feels. Maybe its because it doesn’t require any thought. Maybe it’s the joy radiating from Gemma, who forgets her drawing when they sit down to eat and takes to colouring in Constantine’s tattoos instead. And it’s hard not to preen when he sees the expression in Chas’ face once he’s taken a bite of the roast.

“Did you put a spell on this to make it taste amazing?”

Constantine tries to act offended at that.

It’s even nice to do the washing up with Cheryl, listening to Chas and Gemma watching Peppa Pig in the next room, Chas solemnly commenting on the plot while Gemma giggles and adds her own opinions. It feels so domestic, like being part of a real family, one in which nobody’s going to set fire to his books or smack him for talking back.

“So,” Cheryl says, sliding a mug of tea across the table to him as they both finally take their seats, “what’s wrong, chicken?”

And suddenly the positive feeling is a pricked bubble, gone so fast that it’s almost like it hadn’t been there at all.

“Nothing is, I’m dead chuffed.”

“John. I have known you since the day you were born, and you are a terrible liar, so don’t even try. What’s going on?”

He is transported under her searching, steely gaze back to when he was a teenager and Cheryl was the only person at home who had cared to pry into what he was thinking or feeling.He can’t bring himself to deny anything again, so he shrugs.

“Go on, chicken, you’d tell us if something were really wrong, wouldn’t you? Do you need to lay low for a while? Has Vic done something? To you?”

Her tone is light, but her blue eyes are hard, her posture stiff.

“No!” he says immediately, “No, I-- he isn’t. He wouldn’t.”

She raises her eyebrow, saying nothing. He squirms.

“I... don’t think he would.”

Cheryl’s eyes narrow. “Right, you stay right there. I’m getting us a bevvie, and you’re spilling everything.”

“Aw Cheryl, come on, give us a break, there’s nothing to tell. I’m just overreacting. You know what I’m like!”

“John,” she snaps, turning mid-stride and stalking back towards him, flicking him hard on the forehead and ignoring his pained protest, “Sack it. God knows you’re a smart man, if you’re worried then there’s a reason for it.”

Constantine shrugs uncomfortably but doesn’t contradict her again, well aware that it would be useless. He stays in his seat, silent, as he watches her pour something boxed and no doubt dreadful into two wine glasses.

“Alright, chicken,” she sets the glass in front him just a little too forcefully, “giz it. Tell me what you’re worried about.”

“It’s noth--”

“John,” Cheryl’s voice is icy as she holds up one finger, “if you’re worried then it’s something. I won’t ask again. You think that he’s done something? Or that he might do something?”

“I don’t—“ He can feel Cheryl staring at him, “yeah, I do.”

He doesn’t look at her, eyes focused on the horrible off-pinkish colour of the wine, like old knickers put through the wash with something red. He almost mentions Myra, but he remembers Chas’ eyes rolling. He’s being a jealous child. Chas said he was being ridiculous, and he probably is.

He feels his cheeks heat.

“I’m just doing me own head in, alright?”

“Why?”

“Because... because I went to visit him, yeah? Went all the way to America, and he was working late when I got there, and he went to work the next morning, and he was gone for twelve fucking hours. He didn’t even try to call me, even hung up on me when I called him. And Hub City is shite, right, utter fucking shite. Like, you go outside and your chances of being shot or stabbed are higher than the chance that you won’t. And, I dunno, I was worried about him, and he was acting like, like I was being insane for worrying. And he’d said he’d take me out for dinner, but when he finally got back he was in such a fucking mood that I said we should just forget it, and then I was the arsehole for not wanting to go? He was just so _angry._ And he looked so–”

A flash of his father’s furious snarl plays in his mind, and Constantine feels himself choking. 

“Aww, chicken, that’s horrible.”

Cheryl reaches out to pat his arm, and her voice is so pitying that he feels his stomach turn.

“He was poisoned,” he blurts out.

Cheryl’s hand halts mid pat. “What?”

“It’s a long story. That bloody awful city, Cheryl, you have no idea. But he was poisoned while I was there, and none of it was his fault. He was... he might’ve died, Cheryl. And I was blaming him for being sick.”

“Oh pet, you didn’t _know_ that, how could you have? It’s not your fault you got scared.”

Constantine bristles. “I wasn’t--!”

“That you were _upset_ , then,” Cheryl bulldozes over him, “he was bloody horrible to you, like. I’d’ve been _upset_ too. So you need a little time to recover, that’s not too much to ask.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course, luv. And then you two will be sound, if that’s your only problem.”

Constantine opens his mouth, closes it, then takes a long gulp of the wine. It fills his mouth and spills down his throat, leaving behind a corked taste that coats his tongue like oil.

“That’s your only problem, right?” Cheryl asks.

“I--” he coughs, trying to clear his throat of the wine, “er, yes.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“I, um, have maybe noticed some... some things. Some patterns.”

Cheryl stares at him in stony silence.

“I just, I’m reading too much into things.”

“John.”

“Just, like, overthinking.”

“ _John_.”

He takes a breath. “Well. Sometimes he gets... really angry. Not _at_ me. Just _around_ me. _Really_ angry, like. We were arguing once and he punched a wall. Almost punched a wall. He stopped before he touched it. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”

Cheryl doesn’t speak, her furrowed eyebrows and downturned lips giving him all the answer he needs.

“But, ehm, he was angry with me because I ran off to London.”

Cheryl’s expression doesn’t change.

“I ditched him for a month! I just left and I didn’t text him or let him know I was okay. He’d just, er, he’d just done me a favour, and I threw it back in his face by trying to bin him, y’know, for his own health, and he told me that I was being ridiculous and he wouldn’t let me--“

“You don’t have to stay with someone because they’ve done you a solid,” Cheryl’s voice is flat.

“Yes, I _know_ ,” he says, immediately regretting his exasperation, “I mean, I know that. That—it wasn’t like that, okay? It made sense at the time. And anyways, what’s important here is I left, didn’t give him my English number, he had to hunt it down. He came all the way here for me, and I didn’t even apologize--”

“Sorry, but, you tried to jib him off, ghosted him for a month, didn’t leave behind a number or an address, and he chased you across the ocean?”

“I didn’t give him my number by _mistake_.”

“Sure. But did _he_ know that?”

“He-- look, it sounds terrible when you say it like that.”

“So say it better.”

Cheryl crosses her arms over her chest, frown intensifying.

“I don’t-- I can’t-- just-- just _trust_ me, alright?”

“You know I trust you.”

“ _Thank_ you,” he says, a little sulky.

“Because you know what’s happening better than me.”

“I do, yes, thank you.”

“So then maybe _you_ should trust _yourself._ You’re the one who’s done up. What do _you_ think about all this? Because I trust you when you say that there’s a good explanation. But is it reasonable to _you_?”

He pauses, really thinks about it. He thinks about Charlie, how in all his violence and rage he had never once touched him in anger. For a moment, he wonders if he’s just one step away from reassuring everybody that he’d only walked into a door, that Charlie would never, and even if he had, well, he probably deserved it. But, he reminds himself, Charlie never goes after him, never even seems to consider it. Even when he was poisoned and unravelling, he’d never tried to hurt him.

He thinks again of his father, of the rage that had twisted him up, and how every part of that was taken out on his children. He thinks of Blythe, and Nick, and SW, of all the people who had tried to control him and to manipulate him, who had used affection as a cudgel and jealousy like a knife. And he thinks of Charlie, who doesn’t seem to think he’s owed anything.

“Yeah. Yes. I think so.”

“You _think_ so?”

“It is. I’m just ruining this, like I ruin everything.”

“You’re not ruining any--”

“But I _am_ , Cheryl! Look at me, I get one good thing, one thing that makes me happy. And I just, I find a way to twist it! I make it awful. I make him into a bad guy, but really I’m the one fucking it up, like I do everything else.”

“Chicken--” Cheryl tries.

“He lives in this shite city, and he spends every day putting himself in harm’s way for other people, and all I do is, is-- I got him possessed. _Twice!_ As if he wasn’t in enough danger as it is! And every time he gets hurt I think that this is it, this is the time he _dies_ and then I’ve done it again, I’ve killed someone I–“ In the other room he can hear the volume on the television increase to cover him, and it’s only then that he realizes his voice is getting louder. The hollow, desperate feeling in his chest intensifies. “–someone I care about.”

“You don--”

“I _do_ ,” his breathing is ragged, his voice hoarse, “A-and he’s still alive, so, so now I-I’m just making him out to be this absolute bastard, but what if I’m _making_ him one? I always end up with arseholes, and whose fault is that? Theirs or mine? And what if he isn’t like any of them, and he isn’t like me either, what if he’s better than that, and I just _think_ he’s like them, and I’m treating him like a monster because I-I’m--”

He finds himself enfolded in Cheryl’s arms, his face pressed into her shoulder, nose bent uncomfortably.

“Shh, John, shh, breathe, luv. Take a breath.”

He tries to escape, but her arms are like steel around his head. He breathes.

“I know, okay?” She says, her voice soft, “I _know_. I understand. Sometimes I look at Tony and Gemma, and I think that, I dunno, that I don’t deserve any of this. I don’t deserve them. I don’t deserve you.”

“Well, you don’t deserve me,” he says into her jumper.

“Shut up,” she flicks his ear, but doesn’t release his head, “I deserve you. And you deserve good things too, you pillock, because you’re a good person. Not everything is your fault.”

She holds him for another endless moment. He doesn’t bother to try to fight his way out.

“I’m not going to tell you what to do, John,” she says, finally releasing him and holding his face at arm’s length, “because you’re not much better at listening now than you were as a teenager, and you were a ruddy terror then. You can stay here and keep your head down as long as you want, but you need to tell me now: do you think he’s going to come after you? Because I won’t have Gemma put in danger, John.”

Constantine feels his brow furrow. “What? No! He wouldn’t do that, Cheryl. He tracked me down because I vanished off the face of the Earth and he thought I was dead or dying. It’s like... remember when I was fourteen and I hitchhiked to London, didn’t tell you I was leaving, and didn’t call you when I got there? And you hunted me down and gave me a proper hiding?”

She narrows her eyes, but nods.

“If I vanished again, wouldn’t you come looking for me?”

“Alright,” she says, nodding, “I get it. So, you’re safe, then? Just tell me you’re safe.”

“Yeah. I mean, I’d be safer if he didn’t live in a shithole, but sod it, I dated a girl from Leicester once.”

"Christ, I remember that one. Proper divvy prinny, she was. I was already gutted you and Seamus had split, and then I met her."

Constantine can’t help but smile. Laura had been an absolute nightmare. He still remembers fondly the time he had scrubbed the flat clean to erase all traces of the previous evening's party, just for Cheryl to find Laura passed out in the shower.

“Sorry for dumping all this on you, Cheryl. Turns out I’m just a daft git.”

Cheryl snorts. “You’re not daft for feeling... _upset._ I’d be gutted if it were me, and even if he was poisoned and he didn’t mean it, he did still treat you like rubbish.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Because he definitely _was_ poisoned, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re totally sure about--”

“Cheryl!”

“Okay, okay, so it’s not his fault. But it’s not your fault either. And it’s not wrong to need some time to recover. Honestly, luv, you deserve it.”

“Thanks, Cheryl.”

He makes the mistake of taking another mouthful of wine. There is a moment of silence while Constantine debates whether she would be offended if he spit the wine back into the glass. For her part, Cheryl just looks at him, steady and speculative.

“And I bet you were too huffy to put out for the rest of the time you were there, weren’t you?”

Suddenly there is a light of mischief in her eyes, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. Constantine barely manages to swallow the wine.

“Cheryl, how dare you. You know I am keeping myself completely chaste until marriage. Let us never speak of this again.”

She laughs. "Yeah, think that dream is long dead, innit."

"How very _dare_ you?" Constantine says, bringing a hand to his chest in mock outrage, "I've never even held hands."

"I _wish_ I’d only ever caught you holding hands, John."

"A couple of swallows do not a spring make." Cheryl groans loudly at the joke, grimacing, but Constantine carries on. "Besides, do we have to talk about Liverpool's Sin Queen? 'Cause--"

From the corridor comes the sound of tiny feet approaching quickly, pursued by a frantic "Luv, no leave them be, they're-" that's interrupted by Gemma bursting through the door, skidding a bit on the lino in her haste.

“Mum, Uncle John,” she says, breathless and eager, “ _look_. He is beautiful.”

Chas enters half a second later, his apologetic look somewhat undercut by the glamorous makeover Gemma has given him. Perhaps half a dozen sparkly pink hair clips are clinging valiantly to his short hair, and a purple, sequined cape barely sits on his shoulders. His neck is festooned with at least a dozen glittering plastic necklaces.

“Phwoar,” Constantine says, whistling in appreciation, “proper banging, Chas.”

“I would,” Cheryl agrees solemnly.

Chas blinks several times, eyes darting between Constantine and Cheryl. Having apparently reached some sort of conclusion, his brow smoothes.

“Yes, obviously,” Chas says, adjusting his cape, “I’m fab. All thanks to Gemma of course.”

Gemma, who has been bouncing in the soles of her feet in joy, beams. “You’re welcome, Uncle Chas.”

Constantine feigns a frown.

“I won’t lie, Gem, I’m a little jealous. I thought I was your favourite model.”

He cannot stop himself from smiling when Gemma climbs into his lap, staring at him with wide blue eyes.

“I will make you even prettier, Uncle John,” she says, her voice intense as she brings her hands to his hair, no doubt imagining what sort of braids she’ll create.

“Not likely,” Chas says under his breath, snugging his cape around his shoulders.

“I’ll even let you wear my tiara!”

Gemma giggles as Chas protests in outrage at being denied his rightful crown. Constantine just smiles, and lets the unaccustomed sense of peace wash over him.

* * *

Cheryl has kindly outfitted both him and Chas in some of Tony’s old pyjamas, and Constantine is swimming in his pair. It reminds him, vaguely, of Charlie’s unimpressed stare whenever Constantine complains about how loose Charlie’s shirts are when he tries to wear them.

“Perhaps you should lift more,” he had said once.

“And ruin my lean, model-like physique? After all my sacrifices?”

“I have seen you eat french fries with cheese on them for breakfast with my own two eyes.”

“Right, and who’s swimming in whose shirts, here? Maybe _you_ should start your five pie a day regimen.”

He draws the shirt around himself more tightly at the memory.

Chas is already sitting on his side of the pull-out sofa, furiously texting. Glancing at his own mobile, he sees a text from Charlie. 

“ _All settled in safe and sound at Cheryl’s? Did she like the gifts?”_

Constantine stares at the phone with narrowed eyes, trying to identify what the text is making him feel. He shrugs and scoops it up.

“ _Safe as houses. She and Gemma both say thanks.”_

He thinks about adding a question about Myra, but glances at Chas and hits send before his fingers can betray him.

“ _Good,”_ Charlie pings back almost immediately, “ _Tell them I say ‘pip pip happy early Crimbo, guv’nas’ or whatever it is you people say.”_

_“That’s racist, Charlie. Don’t make me call you and do an American accent again. You know I’ll do it.”_

“ _I have many regrets for what I have done. Please forgive me.”_ There is a moment of pause, _“Is Chas still with you?”_

Constantine takes a quick snap of Chas’ back, showing the expanse of bed between them.

“ _He’s stuck with me until Renee lets him out of the doghouse.”_

_“Are you sharing a bed?”_

Constantine feels his heart edging up into his throat. Another text follows almost immediately.

“ _I can’t stand for that, John. You have to tell him.”_

Constantine’s eyebrows furrow.

“ _Warn him from me that you’re going to steal all the blankets. I can’t in good conscience let him do this without telling him what he’s signed up for.”_

Constantine lets out a bark of laughter, startling himself and Chas.

“What’s the matter?” Chas asks, spinning to face him with wide eyes.

Wordlessly, Constantine extends the mobile to Chas, who reads and rolls his eyes.

“Oh I bloody know. You tell him I came prepared, I got Cheryl to get me an extra blanket, all my own.”

He turns back to his own mobile while Constantine relays his message.

“ _Good,”_ Charlie texts back, “ _I have to turn my phone off for a bit, so sleep well. Tell Gemma and Cheryl I say hi tomorrow morning.”_

_“Goodnight Charlie, xx.”_

* * *

Around him, the house shifts and settles. Beside him, Chas is snoring. Constantine’s eyes are closed, but he cannot sleep.

Everything had felt so... _okay_. Everything had been good, with his sister's words still in the back of his mind and another nice, cordial chat with Charlie to end the day.

And yet, here he is, lying awake.

It had been nice to hear that he was being reasonable, for once. Or, at least, that Cheryl thought so. And Cheryl isn't exactly shy in calling him an absolute gobshite when the situation calls for it, so she probably wasn't just trying to make him feel better. So, according to her, he had been reasonable in needing some time away, and once he had stopped reading too much into everything Charlie said, things had started going much better with him. Charlie is just being Charlie, and Charlie is a good person.

Constantine's hand has gone to his phone, his fingers have typed _You up?_ , and he’s hit send before remembers- oh, right, Charlie’s off the grid. No use waiting for a response tonight then, Charlie won’t get it anytime soon. _What kind of case would require that, anyway,_ he wonders, tossing the phone back onto a nearby armchair.

Something related to Myra, evidently.

He smacks his thigh with a closed fist, the pain stopping his train of thought for one crucial second. _This is not about Myra_ , Constantine reminds himself. Charlie is a good man who would never cheat on him, even if nobody could blame him for doing it, considering the pathetic fuckup he's dating.

He smacks his thigh again. Chas, next to him, makes an incoherent noise of protest, before rolling over and going back to snoring.

 _Charlie is not on some sexy vacation with his bloody ex_ , Constantine reminds himself. Charlie is just working.

In Hub City. Probably putting his life in danger for some daft noble cause. _Again_. After he's almost died twice in three months. And Constantine’s not there to help, this time.

Charlie could die.

And he'd probably die thinking that Constantine hates him, because Constantine just has to ruin everything, like _always_.

Constantine throws off the covers and sits up. Ignoring the cold as his feet touch the floor, he snatches up his coat and swings it on over his pyjamas, patting the pocket to ensure he still has fags, barely remembering to toe on his shoes before he steps out into the bracing wind and light rain of Liverpool in late autumn.

Perching on the low garden wall he lets the nicotine do its good work, focusing on the feeling of the rain as it collects and runs down the back of his neck, soaking his clothing. He makes no move to shield himself from the rain.

He stares blankly at the row of houses across the way, each window dark and vacant, seeming almost to be gazing into him and through him. Shivering at a gust of wind, he breaks his gaze away from the houses, and looks up the street towards where it terminates in a high brick wall, keeping the residents of Cheryl’s street separate from the neighbouring park.

He squints against the rain and the darkness. There is a figure outlined against the brick. A woman, he thinks, with hair slicked down by the rain. She stands on the edge of the light, just far enough out of it that he can’t quite see any details of her. He is hit again by the sense of familiarity, and he knows with a numbing certainty that this is the woman who was in the window. Constantine feels his blood pulsing in his ears, an unaccustomed urge to fight, to spend all this energy on confrontation, fills him.

“You got something you want to say to me?” Constantine shouts into the rain.

As he watches she takes a step forward, passing fully out of the circle of light so that she is just a shape in the darkness, moving forward.

“Come and have a go, then!” he pushes off the wall so he is facing her full on.

“Uncle John?” Gemma’s voice startles him, and he turns to find her watching from the doorway. “Why are you shouting at the rain?”

He glances back up the street. The woman is still coming, her pace unchanged.

She passes under another streetlight, and he is certain that her eyes are stitched shut.

A sickening realization grips him, a recognition that rises in his throat like bile. He vaults the garden wall and runs to Gemma, shoving her into the house and slamming the door behind them. He is breathing raggedly as he throws the locks, his heart pounding too hard and too fast.

“What are you doing up, luv?” he kneels in front of her, holding her shoulders, barely able to breathe.

“I had a bad dream,” she says, “and then I heard you shouting so I thought maybe you had a bad dream, too.”

He hears steps on the front walk, moving towards the door.

“Yeah,” he says, trying to smile, “bad dreams, luv, just bad dreams. Go on up to bed, yeah? I’ll be up to tuck you in in a mo.”

As soon as Gemma starts up the stairs he is scrambling around the house, checking the locks on every window and door, drawing protective wards and pulling down blinds and closing shutters where he can. Standing panting in the kitchen, he hears it so faintly, the sound of footsteps in the dirt outside, a soft tapping, metal on glass, the gentle brush of fingers on brick. He freezes as her outline appears in the window, the frame rattling as she pushes on it. His mouth is open, offering as little resistance to his ragged breath as possible, not twitching a single muscle. She finally moves on, and he dashes up the stairs, stopping in front of Cheryl’s door.

A part of him, a very big part, wants to shake her awake and huddle up in her bed and pretend nothing is happening, even though she’ll ask questions, and make noise, and not let him hide like he wants, and then _she_ will find them–

He takes a shuddering breath, and draws another sigil on her door.

Forcing a smile onto his face as he enters Gemma’s room, he begins tucking her in even though his mind is screaming.

  
"Is everything okay, Uncle John?"

Gemma’s eyes are luminous in the faint blue glow cast by her little bird nightlight. He gestures for her to speak more quietly, even though she had barely spoken above a whisper. 

“Is something wrong?”

Her voice is almost inaudible.

Constantine opens his mouth, closes it, and shakes his head. Gemma frowns, but her eyelids are heavy with sleep.

"Will you read me a story?"

He shakes his head, but her lower lip trembles slightly, her eyes filling with tears.

"I'll stay with you," he whispers.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he strokes her hair as gently and slowly as his trembling hands allow. She opens her mouth and he shushes her with a gesture, a little magic helping her eyes drift closed.

“Go to sleep, shh, shh,” he whispers.

The words are almost deafening to his ears.

When she finally falls asleep, he draws a ward on her door as he closes it, creeping back down the stairs as quietly as he can.

Slipping into the bed, he winces at every creak of the springs. He lies in absolute silence, save for the pounding of his own heart. Chas lets out a snore, and Constantine almost has a heart attack, slapping a hand over the other man’s mouth, forcing his jaw closed. Chas doesn’t wake. Covering his own mouth too, Constantine listens for every sound, twitching at every shift of the house.

He doesn’t move, barely breathes, just lies on his side and stares blindly at Chas, unable to stop her name from endlessly circling in his head, repeating with every step of her feet outside, every rattle of a door handle.

Mother Medicine.

* * *

He wakes suddenly to an empty bed.

His left hand is still clamped firmly over his own mouth, while his right is extended out over the place Chas had been, his fingers cramped and stiff. Chas’ side of the bed is empty, and Constantine feels a swell of panic that makes him dash out of bed and into the hallway. He checks the door– still locked. He almost runs up the stairs to check on Gemma and Cheryl, before he becomes aware of the sound of people speaking in the kitchen.

He approaches silently, halting just outside the door.

“--As mine, Cheryl, honestly.”

“Yeah, I know,” Cheryl sighs, “But seriously. Look at me, Chas. Is this bloke dangerous? Tell me the truth.”

There is a long silence.

“Well, he’s not jealous, I can tell you that much, because John told him we were sharing a bed last night. And you remember Nick Necro? ‘Course you do, we all do. Well, he would’ve learned voodoo so he could kill me from America. Then there’s what’s-her-name, you know, Danielle? She would’ve walked here from Sunderland so she could gouge my eyes out. But Vic just told John to warn me that John would probably steal all the covers.”

Cheryl laughs quietly.

“I mean,” Chas continues, “if I were gonna worry about either of them being jealous, it’s John. Yesterday--”

Constantine practically throws himself through the door.

“Morning, you nosy cunts, you just about done?”

“Oi, stop geggin’ in,” Cheryl says, though she has the good grace to look a little ashamed.

“You’re the one geggin’ in! I’m not gossiping about your fella behind your back, am I?”

He flops into the chair across from Chas as petulantly as he can.

“He hasn’t given you a reason to.”

“Oh sure, save for being a soft shite, like, the kinda fella who’d leave his job for a pyramid scheme.”

It’s too mean, and he knows it, but Cheryl doesn’t say anything, just glares at him. She taps her fingers on the table with a nervous energy that Constantine remembers as the prelude to one of their fights, the kind that would end with both of them shouting that they'll never speak to the other again before slamming the door. Constantine braces for it, his mind scrambling for the old classics ("Fine, I'll go sleep in Ritchie's car, then!") as Cheryl's jaw twitches.

She sighs.

"You cheeky sod," she mutters, her hand going to her forehead as if to massage the anger away.

Constantine sticks his tongue out.

She turns to the stove, and Constantine crumples on the chair, the adrenaline fleeing his body and leaving him weary. Something similar to relief begins to form in his chest, before a fresh panic washes over him. His eyes shoot to the window, the cold light of another shitty Liverpool morning shining through. Is _she_ still out there? He strains his ears; the sausages and eggs frying on the stove, Chas chewing, cars driving outside, a dog a couple of doors down yapping away. She's not there. Or at least, he can't hear her.

 _Then again_ , he thinks, _Chas and Cheryl would have noticed, wouldn't they_? Cheryl has her milk delivered – he remembers rolling his eyes when he’d found out, remembers his sarcastic "how _middle class_ _._ " She had blushed, and even as the shit teenager he had been, he had felt like utter shite.

She has her milk delivered, which means she went outside, and _she_ wasn't there, which means that the coast should be clear.

Perhaps she never was there. It had been late, after all, and he had been in a terrible mood, so perhaps he had just... imagined it. Maybe dreamt it.

He stretches, feeling some of the tension of the previous night unspool, before his eyes fall on the bruises on Chas' face, a constellation of small, oval blots, one on the right side of his jaw, and four more ranged on the left, from the bottom of his jaw all the way up to just under his eye.

“Yeah,” Chas says, noticing his attention, “d’you want to explain why you were trying to tear my jaw off in your sleep?”

Constantine shrugs, the tension of the night before rushing back in.

“You were snoring,” he offers, voice a little weak.

 _Great_ , he thinks, he’s going mental and seeing the bogeyman, he’s pissed off his sister, and he’s managed to actually wound Chas. This is all going so _well_.

Slouching in his chair, refusing to look up at either of them despite the eyes he knows are focused on him, he feels his mobile buzz. Fishing it out of his pocket, he finds that he has received several dozen texts from Jasmine asking with increasing desperation whether he’s dead in a ditch somewhere, and a single one from Romesh asking if he actually managed to pull Prince Harry.

There is nothing from Charlie.

He barely glances up as Cheryl sets a plate of food in front of him. He grunts in thanks, focused on reading through Jasmine’s elaborate apologies and pleas for forgiveness.

“You gearing up to go mental again there, John?” Chas asks.

“Nope, fuck you,” Constantine says, snatching up a sausage and taking a bite despite the fact that it is far too hot for human consumption. “The saussies’re boss, Cher.”

“Ta, chicken,” Cheryl says as she takes her seat.

Something thuds heavily against the door, and Constantine nearly bites his own tongue off, jumping at least an inch out of his seat, spinning to see Gemma stumbling into the kitchen, her eyes mostly closed. She had apparently managed to get about halfway into her jumper before giving up, leaving the bottom scrunched up around her shoulders and the left arm swinging free. Without speaking she crosses the kitchen and climbs into Constantine’s lap, leaning her head against his chest and apparently falling immediately asleep. He registers that Chas is looking at him, has been since Gemma banged on the door, his brows slightly furrowed, eyes searching. Constantine spreads his hands wide, his eyebrows raised in challenge. Chas says nothing, but his expression doesn’t change.

“C’mon, luv,” Cheryl says, shaking Gemma gently, and then progressively less gently as she refuses to respond, “eat your brekkie, Gem, or you’ll have nowt till dinner.”

Gemma mumbles something and burrows her head deeper into Constantine’s shoulder.

Cheryl throws her hands up in the air, while Constantine drags the plate over and grabs a piece of toast, gently bumping it into Gemma’s face in an effort to convince her to eat.

“So, do you know what you’re going to do today, John?” Cheryl’s voice is neutral, her eyes sharp and focused.

“Er, I dunno, Cher. Enjoy your hospitality? Bask in the presence of the radiant beauty by whom the very stars are dimm’d?”

Cheryl shoots him an unimpressed look. “So that’s a no, then.”

“Do you really think so little of yourself, Cheryl?”

She scoffs. “Well, I think I can find something to occupy your time.”

* * *

Constantine drags his feet along the lino, trailing after Cheryl down yet another long aisle, the basket feeling like a lead weight in his arms.

Cheryl dumps a bag of carrots into the basket, and he groans in protest, letting the basket almost hit the floor as he stumbles theatrically. Cheryl rolls her eyes.

“You don’t seem very grateful to be basking in my presence.”

He sticks out his tongue at her.

“C’mon luv, chin up,” she says, turning back towards the shelves, “we’ve got Aldi to go yet.”

He groans louder.

“Why the fuck are we going to Aldi afterwards? Chas got to go to the Asda on his bill, could I not have gone to Aldi while you were here? Do you not trust me to buy things? I can buy _things_ , Cheryl. I’ve bought _things_ since I was five years old.”

Cheryl stops walking, a horrified expression on her face. “Oh yeah, fuck, dad used to send you down the offie.”

“I only went when you were out with your mates.”

“Fuck,” she says, the word one long exhale, “that’s right, I used to go out till all hours when I was eleven, and we thought that was normal, fucking hell.”

She shakes her head in disbelief.

“So is that what this is, then? Making up for lost time? You want to hold my hand when we cross the street now?”

Cheryl snaps out of her contemplative mood and looks at him, wide-eyed.

“Maybe I just want to spend some time with you, seeing as you never come round anymore.”

“Well, why would I,” Constantine says, seeing her game and moving to counter her, “seeing as when I do you spend all your time gossiping about my fella behind my back like an OAP with nothing better to do.”

“Oh, we were _not_ ,” Cheryl says, turning away to poke at something leafy and green.

“I was literally there, Cheryl.”

“We weren’t _gossiping_ about him, John. We were talking about whether he’s good for you. And can you blame us? My baby brother, who I’ve looked after since the day he was born, comes home to me in tears--”

“I wasn’t in _tears_ ,” he mutters.

“-- _Upset_ , then. He comes home _upset_ and I’m not supposed to worry about him?”

"Why is it understandable when _you_ worry, but when _I_ worry about the pure weapon _you_ married I'm just talking bollocks and should mind my own business?"

"Because we have very different track records, chicken."

" _Track records?!_ "

“Well, I’m sorry, my love, but you don’t always make the very best choices. Sometimes you need to be a tiny bit saved from yourself.”

Constantine, who had looked away from her as soon as the trajectory of the conversation had become clear, fixates on a display at the back of the store.

“Look at that Cheryl, they’ve got salmon on for half off.”

“John--”

“What? It really is reduced. Go on, get some, it’s chocka housewives back there.”

Cheryl narrows her eyes at him.

“You stay _right here_. I’m coming back in five seconds and we’re talking about this. And don’t you _dare_ smoke that in here.”

She storms off in the direction of the fish.

Looking down, Constantine finds a cigarette raised halfway to his lips, the lighter ready in his other hand. Breathing a sigh of annoyance, he shoves the fag back into a pocket, already contemplating his best exit. Maybe Scotland would be far enough. Maybe the Shetland Islands. Maybe Mars. As if. There will be no escape, and maybe there shouldn’t be. He’s already thrown Cheryl’s life into enough disarray, the least he can do is let her fuss over him.

Juggling the shopping basket, he fishes out his mobile.

Nothing, still nothing.

He frowns at the screen, which mockingly shows him the message he had sent last night, still unread.

Well, he thinks, Charlie’s probably still working. Got no time to reply to texts. Only time to almost die. Probably in Myra’s arms.

Behind him someone makes a clicking sound, harsh and repetitive. He turns around, and _she_ is there.

Lank blond hair framing an ashen face, eyes neatly stitched closed, she is standing only a dozen paces away from him, blocking the end of the aisle. He can see her eyes moving behind the eyelids, the taut flesh trembling, pulling at the thread that stitches them closed, clearly searching for him despite the futility. One arm is outstretched towards him, the other trails along the shelves, leading her ever forward. She steps once, twice, three times, and he is frozen. The basket slips from numb fingers, clatters to the ground, breaking the deadly silence that he hadn’t even realized surrounded them. He breathes in, watches as her head swings towards him, fixing him in her sightless gaze. Her lips split into a smile, and she begins to hum. It is a tune that is halfway familiar, a lullaby lilt, and it sends a chill racing all the way up his spine, wracking his whole body with shivers.

“Shh, shh, shh,” says Mother Medicine, her voice is harsh, clearly unused to speaking, “it will all be alright.”

She is so close that he can smell her now, the overripe, too-sweet smell of rotting flowers, and underneath that is something else, something sharp and spiky. Blood. Antiseptic. Fear.

Her foot collides with the basket and she stumbles, her outstretched hand grasping at the air, searching for him. Her face momentarily turns away from his, and he is running almost before he can think, sprinting past confused shoppers and clerks, onto the street, continuing down it until he cannot run anymore, his lungs protesting his every movement, hacking up saliva or bile or god knows what else as he struggles not to collapse.

He stays there, leaning against a low wall, bent almost double, his breathing finally steadying despite the continued pounding of his heart.A hand comes down on his shoulder, and he jumps and curses, wheeling to find Cheryl staring at him.

“And you ask why I don’t let you go to Aldi alone. Jesus wept, you meff, maybe you _should_ be holding my hand wherever we-- John, what’s the matter?”

He blinks and realizes there are tears in his eyes. He shakes his head mutely, helplessly, looking over her shoulder at the empty road.

“Chicken, what’s wrong? Did you see someone? One of your exes? Oh god, did you see that proper quilt from primary, what was his name, Archie Shaw? Was it him, chicken? I’m going to batter his fucking face in.”

She turns back the way she had come. Constantine seizes her arm before she’s gone more than a step, his fingers too tight around her wrist.

“Okay, look, this is going to sound bloody mental, but d’you remember... did dad ever tell you about Mother Medicine?”

Cheryl stares at him with wide eyes, confusion writ large, but an undercurrent of horror that tells him, before she speaks, that he had not been the only beneficiary of Thomas Constantine’s imagination.

“Mother Medicine?” she repeats, almost too softly to be heard, but then she shakes her head and her voice returns to a normal volume, “’course he told me about her. Why just tell me to keep you quiet when he could convince me that a monster would kill you if you cried?” She sighs. “I didn’t realize he told you about her too. Guess it makes sense, though. What brought her up?”

Constantine opens his mouth to speak, then closes his eyes, prepared for the worst. “I, er, I think she might be real. And here. In Liverpool. Kinda... stalking me, like.”

He opens one eye to check Cheryl’s reaction. Her brow is furrowed, her whole expression radiating a level of pity and concern that gets his hackles up at once.

“John, are you sure you--”

“Yes,” he says through gritted teeth, “I’m not going mad, Cheryl. I know what I saw.”

“I didn’t say you were going mad, chicken,” Cheryl says, her tone implying that while she had not said it she was certainly thinking it, “It’s just, well, you know how it sounds, luv. How would she even be real? I mean, when we were kids I--” she cuts herself off, shakes her head, “maybe you just saw somebody that looked like you thought she would look?”

“You think that a lot of NHS nurses have their eyes stitched shut?” He cannot keep the snappishness out of his voice.

“Of course not, luv,” her voice has gone full consoling mum, “could it maybe have been, I dunno, one of your... your magic things, like? Maybe you’re just having a vision or... something.”

He is about to snap at her about knowing the difference between reality and hallucinations when he hears a noise and his heart skips a beat.

Cheryl opens her mouth to speak, perhaps noticing that the blood has drained from his face, but he slaps a hand over her mouth before she can say a word, holding the back of her head to keep her from pulling away. In the sudden silence he hears it again, the sound of faint clicking coming from the adjoining street, a hand being dragged along the rough bricks.

“Fuck,” he breathes, just as Mother Medicine rounds the corner, one hand searching in front of her, corpse white fingers feeling the air.

They both freeze as she moves up the street towards them. Though she is on the opposite side of the street, the road is narrow, and her outstretched arm is swinging wide. They are barely breathing and pressed hard against the wall, not even looking at each other for fear that the rustling of their clothing might give them away.

Mother Medicine cocks her head, tilting it from side to side with the crisp, precise movements of a bird of prey. Her grasping hand misses them by inches, and she continues forwards, past them.

Constantine wants to sigh, but resists the urge, instead tightening his fingers on Cheryl’s head and gently pulling her back the way they had come, away from Mother Medicine’s retreating back.

They have taken maybe two careful steps when his mobile buzzes in his pocket, making a happy little trilling noise.

Mother Medicine halts, and then begins to hum again, slowly turning towards them as her face splits into a grin.

“Oh my dear, my love” says Mother Medicine, closing the distance between them with unhesitating steps, “we’ll get you all fixed up.”

Cheryl pushes herself forwards in an instant, putting herself between him and Mother Medicine, but he knows that that’s a fight she isn’t going to win. Grabbing her arm, he pulls her hard in the opposite direction, relying on his childhood memories to guide them to a more populous street, towards St John’s shopping centre.

Beside him, Cheryl is running flat out, shouting.

“What the _fuck_ , John, what the _actual fuck_ , what was that thing?”

He doesn’t answer, finally pulling up short as they emerge into the middle of a busy street. Several people glance at them curiously, but he pays them no mind.

“We need to get Chas,” he gasps out between wheezing breaths, fumbling for his mobile. They’re not far from Cheryl’s place, but he knows he can’t make it, not if they have to run again.

Standing next to him, Cheryl keeps up her litany of _what the fucks_ , eyes wild, staring with hyperintense focus at the side street they had just run down.

“How is this possible?” she suddenly asks, “This cannot be possible, John. Did you know that this would happen?”

“What?” his shaking hands freeze with the mobile halfway to his ear, and he looks at her, into her wide, furious eyes.

“What did you do? Did you _do_ this _?_ Somehow? With your magic or whatever?”

“You think I’m causing this? Seriously? Why would I want this to happen?”

“I dunno John, I dunno why you do half the things you do! Maybe-- maybe you didn’t know this would happen--”

“It’s not my--!”

“What else could it _be?_ You come here all moody and weird and suddenly bloody Mother Medicine is real and coming after us, and what, I’m supposed to think this is a coincidence?”

“Yeah, you are supposed to think that, because that’s exactly how it is!”

“ _Is it?_ It’s not exactly the first time you’ve brought your magical baggage back home with you and put everybody in danger!”

It’s not so much the words that him in his stomach as the look in her eyes. Under her gaze he’s pulled back to his childhood, to the guilt and the confusion that had plagued him for as long as he can remember, to the knot in his throat that would threaten to choke him whenever someone called his name.

He breathes in, and he feels his hands clench into fists.

“You’re right, Cheryl. This is all my fault. It’s _always_ my fault, isn’t it? You want me to go get the hanger for you, or do you reckon you can find one for yourself?”

Cheryl’s face reddens. “I’m not like dad!”

“Well, you sure fucking sound like him right now.”

“Er, John?” Chas’ tinny voice rings out from the mobile in the silence that follows. “Everything alright, mate?”

“No,” he says, tearing his eyes away from Cheryl’s face, “we need you to pick us up, fast as you can.”

He gives Chas the address and hangs up, refusing to look at Cheryl.

They stand in silence for a few long moments before she slumps back against a nearby wall, all the breath and energy seeming to have gone out of her.

“Give us a bifter, will you?” she asks, voice small.

Constantine thinks about it, almost reaches for one. Then he thinks about how she quit years ago and he shouldn’t be encouraging her to pick it up again. And anyways, they’re his fags.

“No.”

He fishes in his pocket for the fag he’d put in there earlier, shoving it between his lips and patting himself down for the lighter.

“Aw, you tight sod.”

He lights the cigarette, takes the first drag, and then Cheryl is hugging him, holding him far too tightly, knocking the cigarette from his mouth.

“I’m so sorry,” she says into his shoulder, “I didn’t mean it. I was just-- I mean-- _fuck_. Y’know?”

He stares at the cigarette, watching it roll its way through the dirt on the pavement, coming to rest in a crevice. Part of him wants to be petty, wants to shove her away, to tell her to sod off, to leave him alone. But the rest of him knows that she’s right, that this probably _is_ his fault, and that even if it isn’t, she has a right to blame him for all he’s put her through.

He sighs and pats her back.

“You didn’t deserve that. You never did. It’s not your fault.”

Her soft voice makes Constantine’s heart crack, and the anger melts leaving him only with a lump in his throat.

He squeezes her once, gently.

“You’re nothing like dad,” he says into the silence, “I was just being mean.”

She nods, releasing him and stepping back, but staying close, her eyes scanning their surroundings.

“Reckon she’ll catch up soon? Should we be moving again?”

“I don’t think so, to be honest. I think that the noise around here will confuse her. Too much for her to follow us in particular, like.”

“I think we should move. What if she finds you?”

“We can’t leave, Chas is on his way here.”

“Well, we should get out of the open, at least. This can’t be safe.”

“I think it is. I mean, she’s blind, right? And she’d have to follow our voices. The street’s full of people, she won’t be able to hear a thing.”

“We could go to ‘Spoons. It’ll be way louder, and it has walls!”

“He’ll be here any min--”

“C’mon, let’s at least go into a shop.”

She seizes his hand in an iron grip and drags him after her into the nearby Poundland.

“Cher--”

“Shh! What if she hears you?” Cheryl hisses, pulling him down an overfilled aisle.

He is immediately immersed in the strange, claustrophobic silence that seems unique to the depths of Poundland, even when there’s music playing over the tannoy.

“Yeah this was a great call.” He whispers, unable to stop himself from doing so.

“At least we’re inside,” Cheryl whispers back, pulling him through the mazelike aisles, “we’ll wait back here and keep our eyes open, and if she starts coming down one aisle we run up another.”

She still has not released his hand. He contemplates trying to shake her off, flexes his fingers to see if he can loosen her grip, but her fingers remain unmoved, and he gives it up as a bad job.

They stand in silence, Cheryl poking around on the shelf next to her, pushing cans of ham back and forth. He sighs.

“Please, don’t say we’re sinking low enough to buy ham in bloody P--”

“It can’t be Mother Medicine.”

Cheryl doesn’t look up from the ingredients list.

“Wh--”

“I used to think she existed,” Cheryl says, eyes unfocused, “back when you were a baby. I spent nights just staring at you, so I’d be there if you made any noise. One time I put-- I put a pillow on your face. I was just so _tired_ , John, and I thought maybe it would muffle your crying when you woke up, but when I woke up you were wheezing and turning blue, and, and--”

Constantine manages to manoeuvre his cigarette pack out one-handed, pulling a fag out with his teeth.

“I could hear her coming whenever you fussed or cried, I could hear her dragging her hand along the wall. I could hear her _humming_.”

He lights it up, takes a long drag.

“But the thing is, she _didn’t_ exist. I just-- I-- one evening, when dad was out, I decided to test it, right? I mean, Father Christmas wasn’t real, so why was Mother Medicine? And so I-- I pinched you. I pinched you so hard I left bruises, and you cried and cried and-- oh god, it’s so horrible, isn’t it?” She finally turns to look at him, eyes brimming with tears. “But I had to prove it.I had to _know_. And she didn’t come. Because she doesn’t exist. Because it was _dad_. It was always dad. She wasn’t real then. So why is she here _now?_ ”

“I don’t know,” he says, taking another drag.

“Oh god, chicken, I’m so sorry for hurting you. I was so scared that she would come and take you away.”

She buries her head in his shoulder.

“Well,” he says, exhaling smoke with the word, “I guess the good news is now you know it wasn’t for nothing.”

She makes a choked, sobbing sound, fisting both hands in his coat, and he pats her awkwardly on the shoulder with his newly freed hand.

Juggling the still sniffling Cheryl and his cigarette, he does his best to pull his mobile from his pocket, considering the best way to compose a text asking Chas just where the fuck he thinks he is and why the fuck it’s taking him so long.

His eyes fall on the screen, on the text that had drawn Mother Medicine’s attention. A text from Vodafone, welcoming him back to the UK.

His last text to Charlie still unread.

He stares at the screen. Takes another long drag from his cigarette.

Good, he thinks to himself. _Great_. He doesn’t even _care_. Fine. _Fine_.

He feels Cheryl stiffen in his arms, and he looks down at her, his mouth opening to ask if she’s okay, and then he hears it.

Humming.

His arms tighten around Cheryl, his heart skipping a beat.

Don’t look, he thinks, don’t look, it’s just a customer. Maybe a member of staff feeling inexplicably jaunty despite working in a Poundland.

He doesn’t want to look, but he sees it from the corner of his eye, in the space between shelves. Blond hair. Blue shirt. Needles.

He grabs Cheryl’s arm and they run to the end of the aisle towards the exit.

They pull up short just as they round the corner, the entire aisle-- the only way out without going back past Mother Medicine-- having been blocked by a massive cart laden with pallets of tat.

“Aw f--” Cheryl begins.

Constantine slaps a hand over her mouth, drawing the startled attention of the teenage employee behind the cart, whose nametag identifies him as Russ. Constantine finds his eyes dragged back to the other end of the aisle. Mother Medicine rounds the corner.

“Er, excuse me? Mate? I’m sorry, you can’t smoke in here,” says Russ, looking between them with wide eyes, “Um, are you okay, miss?”

Mother Medicine continues steadily towards them. Between her left arm touching the shelves and her right arm searching the air in front of her, she has closed off almost the whole aisle.

Constantine grabs Cheryl by the shoulders, pushing her, practically throwing her over the pallets so she lands stumbling on the other side. He gestures urgently at her to go, and she shakes her head, eyes flashing.

“Oi,” says Russ, brow furrowed, rounding the pallet and coming to stand in front of Constantine, arms folded over his chest. “You can’t just--”

“Keep your fucking voice down,” Constantine hisses, injecting as much intimidation into his tone as he can. 

Russ’ face colours, and his mouth opens, presumably to offer a retort, but then his gaze catches on Mother Medicine and he freezes. His mouth drops further open.

“What is it?” he asks, too loud. 

Mother Medicine’s face turns towards him and she smiles. Her sweeping arm stops its searching motion and points directly at him. Something glints at the ends of her fingers, needles seeming to sprout from her flesh.

“It’s alright,” she says, voice sing-songy and over-sweet, “you won’t feel a thing. You don’t have to feel anything anymore.”

Constantine moves to dart around Russ, to vault over the pallets and run, but Russ grabs his coat sleeve and holds tight, yanking him back and nearly knocking Constantine off his feet. Constantine tries to shake him loose, but Russ latches onto his arm, pulling him in.

“You can’t go, you can’t leave,” he says, his voice like a child’s. His eyes haven’t left Mother Medicine.

Constantine gives up shaking him off and tries to haul him to safety instead, but they barely make it a step, Russ’ feet clearly unable to carry him anywhere. His heartbeat pounding in his ears, he winds up with his free arm and punches Russ hard in the ribs. The boy stumbles, wheezing, his grip loosening enough that Constantine can yank himself free. Still reeling, Russ takes a few unsteady steps. Constantine reaches out to stop him, but Mother Medicine is too close. Her outstretched fingers brush against Russ and she doesn’t hesitate. Pulling back, she strikes like a viper, the needles where her fingers had been sinking deep into Russ’ chest, just above his heart. His hands come up to her wrist, holding it as if to pull her hand free, to undo what has already been done.

They pause like that for one eternal moment, Russ staring down at his chest, at her hand cradled in his own, Mother Medicine smiling benignly. Russ makes a noise, perhaps an exhalation, perhaps one final word that only Mother Medicine can hear, and collapses backwards onto the floor. His head lolls towards Constantine, his gaze already sightless. Mother Medicine crouches beside him, smoothing back the hair that’s fallen over his forehead.

“Shh,” she coos, “see? All better now.”

Cheryl grabs Constantine’s collar, hauling him over the pallets, dragging him past other customers and shouting staff, hurtling through the doors and into the crisp gloom of the afternoon.

Across the square she spots Chas’ cab and they race for it together, barely able to breathe, neither of them looking back.

They tumble into the backseat, sprawling over one another in their attempt to get in as quickly as possible. From the front Chas looks at them both with confusion.

“Alright, you two?”

“Go,” Constantine barely manages to gasp, struggling to right himself, “bloody _go_ , Chas.”

“Did you just rob a Poundland or--”

“Fucking _go_ already, Chas, Jesus wept!” Cheryl snaps.

The cab lurches into motion. Constantine and Cheryl manage to extricate themselves, and Constantine’s eyes are glued to the rear window, staring wide-eyed at the seemingly ordinary street behind them until they round a corner and it is out of sight.

“So, do I want to know?” Chas asks, apparently deciding that the silence has stretched on long enough.

“What the fuck took you so long?” Constantine asks, instead of answering.

“I have no idea where I am, John, that’s what took so long. People kept trying to hail me. And said some very nasty things about how I seem to have taken a wrong turn at Buckingham Palace.”

“You’re the reason everybody uses Uber now,” Constantine mutters.

Chas flips him off without looking back. Constantine goes back to searching for any sign of movement out on the street.

“Are you okay, chicken?”

Cheryl is staring at him.

“Yeah. Grand. This is all going so great.”

“Is it just more fun for you if I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, is that what this is?” Chas asks.

Constantine sighs, long and heavy, and opens his mouth to explain.

* * *

They arrive at the house in silence. Nobody makes a move to exit the vehicle.

“So,” says Chas, “should we be setting up candles? Should I pop down the shops for some incense or something?”

“I dunno,” Constantine says, letting his head fall with a thunk against the glass, “She’s not... she doesn’t exist. She shouldn’t exist.”

“Good. Great.” Chas turns to look at the house, fingers tapping on the wheel, “But the protective shite you drew all over the house last night helped, didn’t it? I mean, that’s why you did that, right?”

“Yeah,” he says to the floor, “but that would have kept anyone unwanted out. Even Tony couldn’t’ve gotten in.”

“ _John_ ,” Cheryl says, admonishing, turning to smack him lightly on the shoulder. She opens her mouth to add something, but then she pauses as a revelation hits her. “Wait. That means you saw her last night? And you didn’t say anything?!”

She smacks him again, a little harder.

“Jesus, Cheryl, _ow_. I dunno, maybe I had this crazy idea that I’d tell you and you’d think I was mental? Or that it was my fault somehow? Dunno why I would have thought that.”

“Oh.”

She turns to stare at the floor, fidgeting.

“So, what’re you going to do about her, then?” Chas asks, his eyes searching the garden as if Mother Medicine might have tucked herself in behind some hedges, ready to jump out and shout “boo!” as they walk by.

“Well, you and I’re going to pack our stuff and fuck off. Maybe get a hotel.”

“What?” Cheryl is staring at him now, eyes afire.

“It’s just... it’ll be safer. For you and for Gemma, like.”

She smacks his arm again, ignoring his pained protest.

“No. Jesus, John, you think that she’s just going to leave us be if you clear out? I thought this wasn’t your fault? For all you know she’s got my scent now too. What if she comes back for me and Gemma when you’ve fucked off to some hotel? You think I could take her in a square go?”

“Well, I mean, you probably could. I think they still talk about what you did to Georgia Kulkarni in Year Eight.”

“She deserved it. And don’t you try sweet-talking me, luv, you’re not taking this all on you. She’s my bogeyman too, yeah?” 

He looks at her, at her fiercely determined face.

“Yeah,” he sighs, “okay.”

“Good. I’ll hear no more about it. Let’s go inside before she shows up, at least we know the house is safe.”

* * *

Constantine had retreated to the front room on the promise that he’d be coming up with some solution to their problem. Instead he is staring at Cheryl’s ceiling, eyes tracing and retracing a faint crack in the paint there, listening to the soft sound of voices in the other room. He knows they’re probably talking about him, about how he’s fucked it all up for them, but he doesn’t have the energy to listen, let alone the energy to rebut them. If he even could.

He moans to himself, rolling onto his side and curling up, his knees to his chest. He closes his eyes, letting his mind drift.

He still remembers the first time his father had told him about Mother Medicine. Constantine had been maybe four years old when his father had crouched in front of him, his breath stinking of beer, and put one hand on his shoulder.

“Do you know what happened to your mother, John?” Thomas had asked.

“I... killed her?”

“Yes, you did. But do you know how?”

Constantine had not known how, he had barely understood the concept of death, aside from knowing it was his fault. He had shaken his head.

“See, John, when you were born, she was in so much pain, she was crying, all because of you. And you, you were screaming and screaming. You wouldn’t stop _screaming_.”

Constantine had tried to interrupt, to ask who Mother Medicine was, but his father had silenced him with a look.

“So the doctors took you to another room, John, and they left your mum bleeding and crying all alone. Crying and crying. And you wouldn’t stop screaming even then. And do you know who heard you screaming?”

Constantine had shaken his head.

“Mother Medicine heard you, John, and she came for you. She’s blind, but she can always hear you. She’s always listening, and if she hears you, she’ll come for you.”

“Dad--”

His father’s fingers were digging into Constantine’s shoulder, and the pressure increased in response to his interruption.

“So Mother Medicine crept up to your mum’s bed, John, and her fingers turned into needles and she put your mum out of the misery that _you_ put her in. All because _you_ wouldn’t stop crying.”

He had both hands on Constantine’s shoulders, the fingers bruising, emphasizing every point with a shake that rattled Constantine’s teeth.

“Dad,” he had said, sobbing, “please let me go.”

“Look at you,” his father had said, lip curling, “you don't _stop_. You just _never stop_ , do you? You’ll just keep _crying_ and _screaming_ until she kills us all."

"I d-don't--"

"You want to wake up to Mother Medicine standing over the bloody corpse of your sister? You want Mother Medicine to kill me? _Is that what you want, John?_ "

"N-no!"

"Then _shut the fuck up!_ "

His father had released him then, pushing him away so hard that Constantine had tripped over backwards and thudded into the wall. He had lain there in a crumpled heap, weeping silently, one hand clamped firmly over his own mouth. His father had watched him, for a few long moments, before turning back to the telly.

“She remembers your voice, John,” he had said as he picked up the remote.

Just a stupid fucking story, he thinks, some horrible idea to keep children in line and--

He sits bolt upright, eyes wide.

A story. A _legend_.

“Cheryl!” he shouts, and the conversation in the kitchen cuts off abruptly.

“Yes, chicken?” she calls back, opening the door and sticking her head through.

“Where’s your computer?”

* * *

It takes him too long to remember the politician’s name, having filed it away simply as something ominous and posh, and he ends up being more successful just searching for the representative from Southport. Calum Bloodworth, MP. Still inexplicably in power.

He taps his fingers against his lips as he scrolls through news articles about the man, staring with extra scrutiny the rare pictures that catch both him and his aide. Will doesn’t look particularly sickly, and Calum doesn’t seem to have made any unusual leaps in the polls or politically speaking. In one picture he can even see that Will is still wearing the red string that Constantine himself had put on his wrist to sever him from conducting magic. And yet...

He narrows his eyes. It’s just too perfect, too much the idiot’s MO. Maybe this is some form of revenge, and Will has found a workaround.

He scowls at the story he’s reading, some awkward interview about arts awards and youth clubs. How is he supposed to track these two down? As dim as Calum had looked, he's still smart enough to not give a home address to some random journalist from the _Liverpool Echo_.

Constantine groans, his eyes glazing over as the piece begins to wax philosophical about Calum's love for football, and finds himself wishing Charlie were here. He has so much more patience for research. He has almost convinced himself to give up when he remembers how Charlie had tracked Calum last time.

What a blessing and a curse it is that all politicians now find it necessary to inform the public of their every movement via social media, he reflects, as he navigates through the endless insipid posts about upcoming media appearances and policy changes.

 _There_. He’s going to be giving a speech to a no doubt bored half to death crowd of twenty-somethings at the university in a little under half an hour.

“Chas!” he shouts, and again there is a silence and a flurry of movement in the kitchen. A moment later Chas appears in the doorway, a single eyebrow raised inquisitively. “We’re going to the uni.”

* * *

They wait outside of the building for over an hour, until finally Constantine spots them. They’re sneaking out a side exit, clearly planning to dodge the press and whatever random protestors the presence of a politician will inevitably draw forth.

Constantine slides down in his seat, thinking invisible thoughts, and waits as Chas drives by slowly. As expected, Will flags him down, and the pair of idiots slide into the back seat.

“--and you’ll need to be ready for that meeting with that wanker from the environment, so find the smile that makes you look the least like a thirteen-year-old explaining their internet history to their mother, and try to bite your tongue when he inevitably starts making jokes about 'the ethnics’– we’re heading to The Shankly, mate, thanks,” Will says as they buckle themselves in, “and for fuck's sake, whatever he says _don't_ headbutt him, you've got another speech on Sunday and the shiner will never heal in time,” he adds as Chas begins the drive. Will barely glances up from his phone, even when Constantine slides back up to his full height and turns to face them.

“Er, Will?” Calum says, wide eyes fixed on Constantine, one hand going to slap the aide’s arm.

“Jesus Cal, what is-- oh,” Will stops in the middle of fending off Calum’s hands, “you.”

“Me,” Constantine says, voice cheery, “I reckon you lads know why I’m here.”

Calum and Will glance at each other, both with brows furrowed. Will’s hand goes to the string that’s still looped around his wrist.

“Uh, are you the one who’s been taping fish to the cash points?” Calum offers into the silence.

“I-- what? No. What?”

Will waves away his question.

“Is it blackmail then?” he asks, voice hard, “Because you’ll get fuck all from him. He’s got about as much favour in Whitehall right now as Jimmy Savile’s rotten corpse has at Prince George’s primary school.”

“Oi!” Calum says, elbowing Will hard in the ribs, “And what makes you think he’s blackmailing me, anyways? Maybe he’s after your trust fund.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Right, the one I don’t have because not everybody who went to public school has a trust fund, you classist twat?”

Calum opens his mouth to answer.

“Shut up,” Constantine says, holding up a hand to forestall him, and then bringing it around so one finger is pointing right in Will’s face. “You’ve been up to your old tricks, squire.”

Will blinks at his finger, going slightly cross-eyed, and then his gaze shifts to Constantine’s face, searching for an explanation with wide eyes under furrowed brows.

"Oh, _amazing_. What did you do now, sell your soul to get us a bedsit in Bristol?"

Will turns to glare at Calum. “Fuck you, Cal. And no," he says, turning back to Constantine, "I haven’t. I mean,” he holds up his wrist, the string peeking out from under the cuff of his shirt, “I still have this grotty thing on.”

“He never takes it off,” Calum adds, “every time I look at it I feel like I hired a thirteen-year-old girl who thinks that having a friendship bracelet is the same thing as having a friend.”

Constantine grabs Will’s arm, pulling it towards himself and simultaneously pushing up the sleeve so he can get a better look at the string. As soon as his hand comes in contact with Will’s skin he freezes, a frisson going through him that turns into a full body shudder. He cannot move, his eyes are locked open, and he finds that his chest has become a gaping emptiness. Something vital is missing, sucked away into Will in an instant.

“John?” Chas asks, glancing over at him as Will snatches his arm back, he and Calum exchanging worried glances.

“I thought you said you weren’t _doing_ this shit anymore,” Calum hisses.

“I’m _not_ ,” Will says, prodding at the side of Constantine’s face, which redoubles the feeling of emptiness, wracks his body with more shivering, “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

“Jesus, stop touching him, you’re making it worse,” Calum slaps Will’s hand away, and then waves his own back and forth in front of Constantine’s eyes. “Hello? You dying, mate?”

“John,” Chas says, putting his hand on Constantine’s shoulder and shaking him gently, “are you alright?”

Warmth emanates from Chas’ hand, spreading rapidly, halting the shivering. Constantine is suddenly able to move again and he feels at his chest, finding it whole and intact. He glances back at their passengers, who are staring at him with almost identical looks of wary confusion.

“You’re--” he begins, and then stops, taking a breath and shaking his head, “there’s something wrong with you. You,” he rounds on Calum, “touch him.”

“What?” Calum stares at him, face as open and confused as a stunned kitten’s.

Constantine reaches out and grabs his hand, dragging him with such force that Calum’s hand impacts Will’s face with a resounding slap.

“Ow, fuck,” Will says, reeling backwards, trying to escape Calum’s hand. Constantine doesn’t let him, pushing Calum to stay in contact. He keeps his eyes fixed on Calum, watching for any reaction like he had just had.

Nothing.

Calum wrenches his arm free and takes a swipe at Constantine, catching him on the cheek.

“Fuck,” Constantine says, rebounding backwards.

“Shit, are you okay, Will?” Calum asks, sliding over and cradling Will’s head in his hands.

“Okay, what the fuck is happening back there, are you lot having a fistfight in my cab?” Chas says, voice thunderous.

“He started it,” Will says weakly.

Constantine rubs at the tender spot on his cheek, glaring at Calum. At least he knows now that Calum hasn’t decided to follow in his aide’s footsteps. Which just leaves open the question of how, exactly, a magical black hole could have summoned Mother Medicine.

“I don’t care who started it,” Chas says, “I’ll have no more of it.”

“Or you’ll turn this car around?” Will asks, and Constantine catches a hint of hope under his sardonic tone.

“No,” Chas says, “besides, we’re here.”

“This is not our hotel,” Calum says.

“Well spotted. Get out.” Chas unlocks the doors as he speaks.

“Uh, no I abso-fucking-lutely will _not_. I demand you take us back to out hotel, or I’m going to call the police.”

“No you won’t,” Constantine says, channelling every ounce of frustration and fear that he feels to add layers of menace to his voice, “get out of the car.”

Calum blinks at him, clearly hovering on the edge between fight and flight.

“Cal,” Will says, making an attempt at sounding soothing, “let’s just get whatever this is over with.”

Calum holds the stares for another second, a muscle twitching in his cheek, before he finally slides out of the cab, followed by Will.

Constantine and Chas exchange a look.

“What’s going on here, John?” Chas asks, trying to hide the fact that he is worried. He’s always been a terrible liar.

“Plan’s changed, I guess,” he says, “no reason to spring the trap now, he isn’t doing it. Something’s wrong though.”

He turns to squint at Calum and Will, muttering together near the front walk.

“And you?” Chas asks.

“Huh?” Constantine says, looking back at him.

“Are you okay?”

Constantine looks away, a knot forming in his throat.

“I’m fine.”

* * *

Constantine stares across at Will, his fingers tented in front of his face, barely aware of the conversation Chas and Calum are having in the kitchen. Will, for his part, shifts in his place on the carpet, eyes darting at Constantine and then glancing around the room, alighting in rapid succession on all the various fixtures and pieces of furniture, landing on the obviously made-up pull-out sofa, partially pushed back into place to allow them space to sit.

“So, do you live here, or--?” he asks into the silence.

“Shut up.” Constantine says, trying to keep his concentration, watching as yet another minor hex sinks into Will, vanishing as if it had never existed.

“Right.”

The other man doesn’t even blink in reaction. He truly isn’t noticing it.

They settle back into silence, Will’s fingers tapping on his own knees, then going to fiddle with his thread bracelet, then back to his knees. Constantine hits him with a fairly strong jinx, which seems to shake apart as it brushes Will’s skin, fading into nothing.

“You get paid for this?”

“You think you’re _really_ in a position to shame someone for their job, mate?”

Will snorts, but doesn’t bother to answer, going back to his fidgeting.

Constantine could probably stop this, he’s seen what he needs to see, but there’s something remarkably cathartic about hitting the other man with an endless series of hexes.

“Where’s the other bloke?” Will asks.

Constantine lets his hands fall in the middle of the complex gesture he was making.

“Who?” he asks, knowing full well who he means.

“You know. The ginger one.”

“Not here.” Constantine says, tone clipped

“Yeah, I can see that. Is he down the shops? Maybe he’s off kidnapping the Chancellor of the Exchequer?”

“He’s in America.”

Constantine hits him with something particularly nasty, and the bastard doesn’t even flinch.

“Oh. Had a lover’s tiff?” 

Constantine’s hands still. “What?”

“I mean, you two were _together_ , weren’t you?” Will hesitates, brow furrowing. “Oh god, don’t tell me you _both_ never said anything, those were some homoerotic visions you two were having. Also kinda fucked. You two should probably talk.”

Constantine’s hands fall into his lap. “I-- You could see them?”

“Sure,” Will shrugs.

Constantine stares at him.

There’s a part of him, a big part, that wants to ask what Charlie saw. Charlie had never given the details, beyond that it had involved him shooting Constantine in the chest. It’d be only fair to ask, he tells himself, after all Charlie knows about Newcastle. Hell, he probably knows about _everything_.

But, he reminds himself, he wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the details either. And he never actually asked Charlie what he saw, after their initial, halting discussions, because he hadn’t wanted to explain his own. Seems unfair to take that choice from Charlie.

Constantine coughs, shaking his head. “I didn’t expect the muppet to be gay.”

“Really? You thought his adoring looks and sneaky peaks at your arse were just how heterosexual lads told other heterosexual lads they'd like to slam back some vodka together?”

“No, not my ginger, yours.”

Will’s eyes widen. “How did you--”

Constantine just raises an eyebrow, and Will swallows his question.

“Well,” he says, recovering, “so you never had any doubts about _me_ , is that what you’re saying?”

“You built him a tragic little political empire on a pile of bodies. You weren’t exactly subtle, mate.”

“I never killed anybody.”

“Sure,” Constantine stares at him for a long moment, taking in the certainty of his features, the stiffness of his posture. “Was it worth it?”

“Yes.”

Neither his face nor his posture change.

Constantine snorts. “Jesus, you’ve got shit taste.”

“Oh, fuck you. At least he’s not dreaming about strange women climbing out of a gaping hole in my chest. At least he isn’t dreaming about murdering me.”

“No, he’s just dreaming about putting fucking Nick Clegg into power.”

“Nick Clegg hasn’t been the leader of the party for years, you massive prick.”

“Guess I care about the Lib Dems about as much as the rest of the electorate, then. No wonder you needed black magic to get your china into office.” 

“Seriously, fuck you,” Will is leaning forward now, uncaring of breaching the circle of herbs and chalk that Constantine had drawn around him. “I’ve spent time with politicians, alright? I’ve spent my whole career talking to them, _listening_ to them. Nobody’s ever cared, seriously cared, about the office as much as he does. None of them have even a _tenth_ of the wit that Calum has. They’re all soulless husks with barely enough energy to shout “hear, hear” during the PMQs. He’s been in politics for almost twelve years and he’d still foul you, punch you in the face when you call him a cunt, then offer to get the first round down the pub after.”

“Are you speaking from experience? Should I be calling someone?”

“Fuck off, I wasn’t even working for him then. This was nine years ago, during a charity football match.”

“Truly the height of wit.”

"He did say it was ironic the Tory team's right wing was _that_ weak."

Constantine isn’t able to stop himself from snorting. “And I guess you just fell in love right there.”

Will doesn’t answer, his ears going a little pink.

“Seriously? Wait, when did he--”

“What about yours, then?” Will breaks in “Sure, he’s well fit, but I don’t know that any shag is worth the risk of a broken jaw. Is _he_ worth it?”

“Yes.” Constantine says it without a moment’s thought, startling himself with the immediacy and vehemence of it. Before he can examine that further, the door opens, Cheryl’s head poking into the gap.

“Alright, chicken? I dropped Gemma off with--” she pauses taking in the scene, and her eyes narrow, “John. Did you put leaves on my rug? Did you _draw_ on my carpet?”

“No,” he says, rising. "Is Gemma back? I'll clean up."

"Too right you will, it cost us £60 and a day in Ikea to pick that rug– also no, as I was saying, Gemma's off with Tony. What _is_ that? The whole room smells like sage, for fuck's _sake_ , John."

"What?"

Cheryl’s worried enough that she’s sent Gemma away. Which means that Cheryl thinks Gemma would be in too much danger to stay with them. And why wouldn’t she think that, he _has_ put her in danger, put all of them in danger. And now Tony _knows_ that he’s fucked up and put Gemma in danger, and Cheryl didn’t even bother to tell Constantine, probably because she still thinks it’s his fault. And now that his last, best hope is dead, who can even say that it _isn’t_ his fault? It probably _is_.

He feels like he’s suffocating.

"I thought you said you trusted me," he manages to choke out.

Cheryl frowns.

"What? What does that have to do with anything? I'm not putting my daughter anywhere near that fucking monster."

"Oh Christ, is that why I'm here? Another monster? Have there been more deaths?" Will scrambles to his feet, scattering several lines of herbs across the rest of the carpet.

Cheryl eyes him up and down, her eyes cold. "Oh, right. You. Is that why he's here, John? He's the tosser responsible for all of this?"

"No! I’m not responsible for _anything_ _,_ ” Will throws his hands up in the air, “For fuck's sake, you make a deal with a couple of urban legends _once_ \--"

"Yes, it’s all so very hard, my heart weeps for you," Constantine says, and then looks at the man, his head tilting to the side as he considers the potential usefulness of a magical black hole. "With that said, I _do_ need you."

"No!" comes a voice from the hallway, and Calum is pushing his way into the room, "This is fucking ridiculous! You heard what he said. He didn't do whatever the fuck this is. And I'm sure that he's actually being honest this time– because you've been honest, haven't you Will?"

There’s a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Cal. _Yes_ , I’m being fucking honest.”

"Exactly. So yeah, good luck, best wishes, it’s been a fucking nightmare, off we go, if you have any other inquiries please submit them in writing to that dickhead you people voted in."

He grabs Will’s hand and pulls him towards the door.

"Wait--!" Constantine takes a step forward, and the pair halt, Calum positioning himself in front of Will, snatching up a nearby lamp and brandishing it at Constantine as if it is a weapon. Cheryl growls something, no doubt ready to jump in and go for the MP's throat, though whether that’s out of concern for her brother or the lamp is anyone’s guess. Constantine's mind scrambles to make up something to convince them to stay.

“When I cut him off from the legends one of them didn’t quite die, and she’s attached herself to him. If you two stick around we can kill her for good. If not, well...” he trails off, letting the casual shrug of his shoulders speak for him.

Calum and Will glance at each other, a great deal no doubt communicated in the moment of eye contact.

“ _Will_ ,” Calum says, warningly.

“Fine,” Will says, turning back to Constantine, “what do I need to do?”

* * *

He’s positioned himself and Will nearest the doors into the yard, both of them keeping an eye out for her approach. He had released the sigils on the door about fifteen minutes ago in the hopes that it might entice _her_ to appear, and performed a minor invocation five minutes later, but as the minutes pass he grows less and less certain of this plan. Further into the kitchen, Chas stands by the window, alternately looking out it and checking his phone, an oasis of tranquillity in the midst of the rising tension. By the door into the rest of the house, Cheryl and Calum sit at the table, occasionally making small talk while she fiddles with a piece of paper, folding it over and over again so that the creases grow worn and thin.

The energy of the whole house is nervous, everybody clearly on edge, but as the minutes tick by the nervousness begins to curdle into frustration.

“I always vote Labour,” Cheryl says into the growing silence.

“Oh,” Calum says, “okay, well fuck you too, then. You’re not even one of my constituents.”

Cheryl scoffs. “I know, thank fuck.”

Calum opens his mouth to respond, scowl vividly illustrating just how well that will go.

“What he actually meant was ‘I appreciate your feedback and value your opinion,’ right Cal?” Will breaks in, throwing a fierce glare the MP’s way.

“No. Unless you’re moving to Southport I very much meant fuck you too, then.”

Will groans. “And you wonder why I had to turn to magic to get you elected."

"I got _myself_ elected, fuck you very much. _I_ was the one who saved _you_ from writing another article about how the Romanians are giving our cows cancer.”

“Alright you lot,” Chas says, “let’s all just take a breath, yeah? This isn’t helping.”

“Like anything fucking will,” Calum says, rounding on Chas, “and what’s your deal, anyways? You took a wrong turn at Buckingham Palace?”

“Oi, simmer down,” Constantine says as commandingly as he can.

Calum crosses his arms over his chest and slides down a little in his seat, pouting and grumbling something under his breath that makes Cheryl look about ready to batter him. Chas looks at Constantine, slightly desperate for some way to defuse the tension.

Constantine shrugs.

“Y’know what’s weird?” Chas says, voice too light, “I don’t think any of your newsagents up here carry _The Sun_.”

Cheryl’s head whips towards him.

“Why were you looking for _The Sun_ , Chas?” Her voice is flat, the question barely inflected.

“I wasn’t _looking_ for it, I--”

“Wanted to _read_ page three, Chas?” The disgust is evident in Calum’s voice.

Chas’ eyes are wide. “No, of course not, I--”

“I can’t believe it, me own brother’s own best mate, a filthy _Sun_ reader.”

At this point Constantine tunes them out, knowing that there is nothing to be done to save Chas from this, the poor bastard. At least it’s given Calum and Cheryl a common enemy so they won’t tear out each other’s throats before Mother Medicine gets the chance.

He casts a quick look at the darkening yard, but no movement stirs. He begins to wonder, to worry what he will do if she doesn’t appear soon. The house is already on the verge of exploding, and he doubts he’ll be able to convince Calum and Will to stay for more than one night.

How is it possible to fuck up summoning Mother Medicine?

He leans his head against the glass of the door, fishing in his pocket for his mobile to glance at the time, before going to messages. Charlie still hasn’t answered his last text, hasn’t even read it. And why would he, he’s got more important things to be getting on with. After all, he—

Constantine’s train of thought halts in the middle of a word, his mind suddenly casting back to what Will had said before.

Charlie might not be worth a broken jaw.

He feels his brow furrow as he tries to remember Charlie and Will’s brief interactions. Nothing. Charlie hadn’t done anything menacing. They’d barely exchanged words.

“How did you know?” Constantine asks, stepping a little closer to Will’s side of the door.

“Know what?” Will looks up from his phone in mild startlement.

“About... what he’s like. My ginger. His temper. Did you read my mind?”

Will frowns at him. “No? It was in his nightmare.”

  
Constantine freezes.

"What," he says, the word rolling flatly out of his mouth.

"He bashed your head in. Did he not mention that?"

Constantine doesn’t answer, though he imagines his silence is answer enough. Certainly the other man’s expression makes that clear, his face twisting in a quick wince of pity.

Constantine doesn’t really notice the handle of the door turning, he just moves with the door as it opens, grabbing Will by the front of his jacket as he does so and pulling him out of the way once it slams open. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Cheryl slap a hand over the mouth of Calum, whose eyes have grown almost impossibly wide, his face drained of blood. Constantine watches as Mother Medicine steps into the kitchen, her right hand outstretched and fingers wiggling in strange, unsettling patterns, almost as if the bones aren’t quite where they should be. She tilts her head from side to side, listening. Everybody in the kitchen stays frozen, barely breathing.

“Come out, come out,” she says, voice soft and sing-songy.

Tensing, Constantine tightens his hold on Will. Either Mother Medicine will die on contact, or she will be distracted long enough to give the rest of them time to make it through the better-guarded kitchen door, he thinks.

He pushes Will roughly, almost throwing him at Mother Medicine. They collide, Will making a noise of combined surprise and terror. It is Mother Medicine who rights herself first, her hand closing around Will’s upper arm with an iron grip, even as he tries to tear himself away.

“Don’t worry, my love, you won’t feel a thing,” she coos, jerking him closer.

Her arm pulls back to strike, needles sliding from her fingers a moment before they sink into Will’s chest.They freeze like that for a long moment, as he gives a shuddering exhalation, a gasping, incredulous sound, and his hands come up to find Mother Medicine’s wrist

“No!” Calum shouts, voice breaking as if he is the one being stabbed. Cheryl grabs him, clearly using every ounce of her strength to hold him back.

Without warning, Mother Medicine begins screaming, a horrible, ear-piercing shriek. She jerks her hand free of Will’s and backs away, hunched and frightened like a wounded animal. Constantine can see that her hand has blackened, her fingertips and the part of her wrist that had touched Will’s hand blistering and flaking like they had been in a fire. She cradles it against her chest, still shrieking, tears streaming from her sewn-up eyes. She takes a step, sways, then stumbles back several, taking her almost to the still-open door. Chas, taking advantage, moves towards her, arms outstretched as if to push her outside. Mother Medicine, hearing his steps, spins to face him with her teeth bared and strikes out with her uninjured hand, a glint of metal appearing as she slashes him across the face.

“Ah, _fuck_ ,” Chas says, reeling back, blinking away the blood streaming into his right eye from the thin slash wound above his eyebrow.

Mother Medicine moves to strike him again, rearing back to sink the needles into his chest this time, but is caught a glancing blow by a glass thrown with surprising force by the still-restrained Calum. Taking advantage of her momentary confusion, Chas kicks her hard in the chest, sending her tumbling back into the yard. Before she can stand, he slams the door and locks it. Constantine slaps a renewed sigil on it before she can try the handle again.

Will, still inexplicably upright, begins to sway, falling hard against the nearby wall. Four blooms of blood are clear against his white shirt, forming a semicircle above his heart.

“Fuck,” he says, voice faint, “oh fucking Christ, she stabbed me.”

Calum breaks free of Cheryl and runs to him, cradling him and sinking with him to the floor.

“You bastard,” he spits from the floor, “you absolute _bastard_.”

“It worked,” Constantine says. He can feel his hands shaking; _adrenaline_ , he thinks, breathing in around the lump in his throat, “he did it, he hurt her.”

“Fuck, it _hurts_ ,” Will whimpers, clawing at his chest, “it burns, oh god, it burns, Jesus fucking Christ!”

Constantine waves him away. “You’re not dead, are you? You’re better off than the last bloke that went toe to toe with her.”

“God, you’re such a cunt,” Calum hisses, smoothing down Will’s hair and holding him tighter as he writhes in agony.

“C’mon,” Constantine grabs Will by the forearms and tries to haul him to his feet, “can’t you see it _worked_? Just once more and--”

Calum slaps his hands away, hard. “Don’t you fucking touch him,” he growls.

“He just needs to touch her one more time, just one last go and we can save everyone else.”

“Fuck _everyone else_!” Calum’s eyes are shining, his face red.

“Chas, oh god--” Cheryl shouts, and Constantine turns just in time to see Chas crumple to the floor.

“Chas!” he vaults over a chair and skids to the man’ side.

“I don’t feel so good,” he says, blinking against the blood in his eye. The wound above his eye is raw and inflamed, blood still leaking from it sluggishly.

“What the fuck,” Calum says over Will’s laboured breathing, “what’s happening to him?”

“It’s the poison, I think she got a little in him when she nicked him,” Constantine says, resting the back of his hand on Chas’ forehead, feeling the feverish warmth.Constantine struggles to remember a healing charm, snatching a shaker of salt off of the counter with trembling hands. Chas blinks sluggishly up at him, eyes cloudy.

“The _poison_?” Calum says, “You let Will be injected with fucking _poison_?”

“No. Well, yes. But I knew it wouldn’t work on him, ‘cause he’s kinda like a black hole, don’t you see? He just sucks up all the magic and--”

“Fuck you,” Calum breaks in, “ _fuck you_ , you didn’t know that, you _guessed_ that it wouldn’t work. And what if you had been fucking wrong, huh? I knew this was a shit fucking idea, I knew you would try to kill him again--”

“I never--”

“All this because you can’t do your own fucking job properly! You want to help _everyone else_ so much, maybe you need to go out there and throw yourself to your fucking monster.”

Cheryl drops to her knees beside Chas, opening a first aid kit and beginning to dab at his cut with an antiseptic wipe. Constantine hadn’t even noticed her leaving.

“Fuck, it _hurts_ , Cal,” Will says.

“I know, but c’mon, stand up. Get up. Stand up. C’mon. Up. Oh for--”

Constantine turns to see Calum heaving Will over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“Wait!” He scrambles to his feet, “Didn’t you see? Just one last time and--”

Calum puts up a hand. “Stop. Listen. The next time I see you, I will punch your fucking face in, you got that? We’re going to the hospital.”

He grabs Chas’ keys off of the counter.

“Oi, is that my taxi? You can’t take my taxi.” Chas hauls himself to his feet, swaying dangerously.

“I’ll bring it back,” Calum says, taking another step towards the door.

“No!” in an impressive burst of speed Chas makes it to the door before him, “I’ll come with you. It’s my taxi. I’ll drive.”

Calum looks him up and down, at the shakiness of his legs, the sweat on his brow.

“Yeah, sure you will. C’mon then,” he nods at Chas to open the door, still ignoring Will’s sweary protestations as he carries him into the hallway.

“Chas, wait--” Constantine says.

Chas sticks his head back in through the door. “It’s fine, John, I’ll be back soon.”

And then he is gone.

Constantine slides back down to the floor, looking to where Cheryl is still knelt on the floor, bloody towel in her hand. She looks back with haunted, frightened eyes.

“Do you think they’ll be okay? Oh god, chicken, what if she’s waiting for them?”

They both freeze, straining to hear sounds from outside. A door slams, a car engine starts.

He shrugs.

“Guess she wasn’t,” he says, his throat tight.

* * *

They do not speak again for almost an hour, or, at least, Constantine doesn’t, holing himself up in the living room and refusing to respond to Cheryl’s increasingly worried questions. He sits against the door so she cannot open it, and stares at the ceiling.

He had been so close. The plan had been _so close_ to working.

In his pocket, his mobile buzzes. He rushes to get it out, mind already conjuring the worst possible message from the hospital.

“ _Sorry about that._ _Everything okay?_ ”

He stares at Charlie’s text, feeling something indescribable well up in his chest. He wants to scream. He is holding the mobile so tightly that his hand is shaking.

“ _No._ ”

Almost immediately the bouncing dots appear.

“ _What’s happened?_

_Are you hurt?_

_Can I help?_ ”

He stares at the messages, watching them come in. He thinks about answering, but cannot stir his fingers to move.

His mobile rings, a call from Charlie. Constantine stares at it still. He declines the call, the buzzing cutting off almost as if affronted. There is a brief silence, and then the phone begins to ring again.

He takes a deep breath.

“Charlie,” he says.

“John,” Charlie sounds worried, slightly breathless, like he’s been running, “what’s happened? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. How about you?”

“Are you really fine, or...?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he snaps, and then sighs, rubbing his eye with his free hand. “Everything’s fine. How are you?”

“Uh, I’m okay. Working.”

“Of _course_ you are,” he mutters.

“What?”

“I guess that’s where you were off to for the past day, then? Just working? For a whole day?” 

“Well, yeah,” Charlie’s voice is wary, like he senses the trap, “working, and I had to get Myra to--”

“ _There_ it is.”

“I--what?”

“It’s always about _Myra_ , isn’t it? She just snaps her fingers and you come running.”

“No, it’s just this case--”

“Oh, of course, the _case_. There’s always a _case._ Always a _case_ that takes all your time and attention and will probably end up killing you for your trouble. And what happens then?”

“John, I won’t--”

“That’s all you have time for! Your next _case_. It’s all you _want_ to have time for! Unless _Myra_ is involved, of course, then suddenly you have all the free time in the world!”

He’s panting, feels his skin flushing, feels the angry tears pricking his eyelids. He feels wrung out and stretched too thin. He wants to curl up into a ball and never speak again.

For a long moment there is silence on the other end of the line.

“John, I’m not-- I don’t-- look, are you sure you’re okay? You sound... I’m worried about you. What’s-- did something happen?”

Constantine takes a deep, shuddering breath, something cracking slightly in his chest. “There’s this, this thing, this monster. An urban legend.”

“An urban legend? Like in London?” Charlie sounds interested, focused. He would. It’s a _case._

“Yeah. Kind of.”

“Are Calum Bloodworth or his aide involved?”

The frustration resurges, hot and overwhelming.

“I spoke to Will.”

“Oh, great! Did he--”

“He told me everything.”

“...Everything about what?”

“He could see our nightmares, Charlie. Both of us.”

Charlie takes a deep breath that seems to last forever. When he speaks his voice is so soft. “John, you know I wouldn’t--”

“Sure,” it sounds false and conciliatory to his own ears. “Look, Charlie, I have to go.”

“John, wait, I--”

“Just fuck off, alright?” He realises he is shouting, his words backed by an anger and vehemence he hadn’t expected. Before Charlie can respond he hangs up, chucking the mobile across the room for good measure. It thunks into the wall next to the window and falls to the floor, skittering under some piece of furniture, but he doesn’t watch it go, too focused on the window.

Mother Medicine is visible behind the gauzy curtains, one hand pressed against the glass.

“Chicken?” Cheryl taps gently on the door, clearly pressed up against it, “what was that?”

“Mother Medicine’s at the window,” he says, not taking his eyes off of the vague form there.

“Is that why you shouted and threw something?”

“...Yeah.”

“You told Mother Medicine to fuck off?”

“...Yeah.”

“And did she?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, it was a good effort, chicken.”

“Thanks, Cher.”

The door rattles slightly as Cheryl tries the handle. He pushes himself back against it.

“Can I come in, John?”

“No,” he says. _I’ll just end up hurting you too_ , he doesn’t say.

“Alright, chicken. I’m just going to make a cuppa. You let us know if you want anything.”

Constantine doesn’t respond, watching as Mother Medicine slowly taps her hand on the glass.

He thinks that he can hear humming.

* * *

He must fall asleep at some point, because he blinks and the room has grown dark. He cannot see the outline of Mother Medicine against the window, but it is hard to see much of anything.

He wonders what time it is, reaches for his pocket, only to find it empty. _Oh right_ , he thinks, remembering the way his mobile had bounced off the wall, the noise it had made as it hit the floor.

He lets the comforting warmth of anger envelope his mind for a moment. Part of him wants to scream, to pick the mobile up, hit redial, and tell Charlie to fuck off again. Part of him just wants to curl up in a ball and let it all pass him by, to close his eyes and just sleep forever.

He wonders if Charlie had tried calling him back. Probably not. Why would he, Constantine reflects bitterly, to be shouted at again, after he’s done nothing to deserve it? No, if Charlie has any good sense, he’ll be washing his hands of him. He’ll have deleted his number, trashed what few items Constantine has left in his flat, and gone to cleanse his palate with someone who isn’t fucking insane. Maybe Myra.

Bet Myra never killed anyone. Bet she never let her best friend get poisoned, some random bloke stabbed, her sister and niece put in danger, all for nothing. Bet she never told Charlie to fuck off when he was just trying to help. Bet she’s not a complete and utter fuck up.

He flops back against the door and sighs.

Staring at his hands, he slowly becomes aware of the dead silence of the rest of the house. A dread grips him as he realizes that he’s left Cheryl alone and more or less unprotected this whole time. He scrambles to his feet and tears open the door, ready to shout for his sister, and barely manages to avoid tumbling over her body, lying on its side and stretched in front of the door. His heart leaps into his throat and he almost gives into the urge to weep before realizing that her ribs are moving slowly and steadily, that she is snoring faintly.

Stepping over her, taking care not to wake her, he realizes she’s got a knife in one slackened hand. Her brow is furrowed even in sleep, her hand clenches convulsively around the knife handle, sick with worry.

He has done this to her. He brought this to her doorstep.

She was right all along.

He hears a tap-tap-tapping from the kitchen, the gentle susurrus as a hand is dragged over the wood, the rattling as the handle is tested.

He moves towards the kitchen as if in a dream, almost out of control of his own movements. Mother Medicine is just a vague shape, barely visible through the glass and curtains as she moves slowly away from the door and goes to rattle at the next window.

 _Well_ , he thinks, hand going to the doorknob, _you want to help_ everyone else _so much, maybe you need to go out there and throw yourself to your fucking monster_.

The night air is cool on his face, the light drizzle barely noticeable as it settles on his shoulders and in his hair.

Mother Medicine turns to face the door, her head tilted, birdlike, slowly raising one hand towards him, searching the air for him. He notices that she’s still cradling her right hand and arm close to her body. She begins to hum, and it seems to him to have an inquisitive sound.

“Well, here I am,” he says.

Her humming stops, and it’s as though the silence is a hand that has gripped him and thrown him back to his childhood. Suddenly he feels like he’s a child, curled up in the closet, his hands covering his mouth while scratching noises move ever closer in the hallway. He had never seen her _then_ \-- of course he hadn’t, it was something his father had made up-- but her outstretched hand is a familiar sight, something he swears had plagued his nightmares back in those evenings he would barely dare to raise his voice over a whisper.

“Oh, _chicken_ ,” she breathes, and he forces himself not to shudder, “you know, it doesn’t have to hurt.”

“Doesn’t it?”

He keeps himself in place even as she advances towards him, her feet feeling out her route cautiously.

“No, never,” she says, raising her uninjured hand, the emerging needles glinting dully in the faint light.

He is taken aback to find that she is capable of responding to things that are said to her. He had assumed she merely parroted comforting phrases. 

“Why not?”

She stops, head tilting to the other side. Her fingers seem to be feeling the air between them, as if reading a message written in braille.

“Hasn’t it hurt enough, my dear, my love? Haven’t you suffered enough?”

Constantine breathes in, the air seeming to wash away whatever thought he was having and leaving him empty of everything but a static that dulls his mind with weariness.

He wants nothing more than to sleep.

“And what has _that_ solved? What has that suffering brought, other than more pain?”

Her voice is soothing, a quiet lullaby that creeps up from the dark depths of his mind and envelopes the rest.

“I deserve it.”

His voice is a weak rasp escaping the knot in his throat, a rattle coming from the child he used to be, before the anger, but well after the guilt had settled in.

“Is that what your father told you?”

Constantine feels himself choking.

“Your father told you so many lies, my love. That you deserve it, that if you said anything you and your sister would be taken away, that you’re to blame, that it has to hurt. He told you that I was going to hurt you too, didn’t he?”

 _You will_ , Constantine thinks, but the lullaby washes over him and carries that thought away.

“You’ve been such a good boy all this time, my darling, my love. You’ve been so strong. Aren’t you _tired_?”

_Yes._

“There’s no shame in that. Everybody deserves to rest sometimes, and you’ve suffered for so long. It’s time for you to sleep, my love, just lie down and sleep. Just this once, let someone else deal with it. Let it go. Let me help you.”

He takes a faltering half-step towards her.

It would be so easy. It _could_ be so easy. And all he has to do is give up. All he has to do is leave Cheryl behind. Leave this for her to deal with, another mess for her to clean up. Leave her to call Chas and Charlie and tell him what she’s found. Leave Chas to drive back to London from Liverpool, injured yet again for nothing. And Charlie...

“No.”

Mother Medicines sighs. “My dear, please don’t be difficult.”

“ _No_.” He shuts his eyes, even though she might strike. He has to, the lullaby, the promise of it, still clouds his mind, threatening to overtake him, “I’ve done this already, I _always_ do this--”

“That’s not--“

“I fuck everything up and leave them to deal with the consequences--”

“My love--”

“Don’t you see, _that’s_ why people hate--“

Her fingers caress his cheek, cold and lifeless, too gentle. He startles, but doesn’t pull back.

 _No more running_.

Constantine opens his eyes, looks at Mother Medicine. There is compassion on her face, he thinks, but also disappointment. His mind is empty, and cold, and frightening, but clear.

“I’m okay. Or maybe I’m not, but this-- this is _fine_. _I_ have to fix this. Not them. Not you.”

Mother Medicine’s eyelids strain against the stitches, a hint of white and light blue appearing through the slits, her sightless gaze seeming to search him.

“Is this what you want?”

He thinks he can feel cool metal on the side of his face, the slick sides of a needle. He swallows, his throat dry.

“Yes.”

After a long moment, she nods.

“You’re trying so hard to be brave, my dear, sweet boy,” she says, patting his cheek gently, “but one day you’ll see this can’t be fixed. One day you’ll see that this is the only cure. And then I’ll be back.”

She is gone, with neither fanfare nor warning. Nothing marks that she had ever been there, even the sensation of her hand on his face hasn’t lingered. He is alone.

He stares into the darkness of the garden, shivering, letting the rain soak him.

“John?”

He turns to face Cheryl, standing in the doorway, the knife still dangling at her side. She looks stricken and pale.

“Cheryl,” there is a lump in his throat, and he realises that he is crying, “Cheryl. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He is sobbing as he falls into her arms, face buried in her shoulder, and they collapse together to the kitchen floor.

* * *

The morning breaks uncomfortably, neither of them sure what to say or where to look. Just one more in a long line of things they won’t talk about.

Constantine stands at the stove, fussing over the rashers of streaky bacon as an excuse not to look at Cheryl. She sits at the table, the sound of her leg bouncing on the ball of her foot just barely audible over the sizzling.

“Are you sure she--”

“She’s gone.” His voice is hard, but he can’t soften it. 

“So me and Gemma are safe when you go?”

“She won’t come after you again.” _She was never after you_ , he bites back bitterly, _it was always me. Always my fault._

“Good,” she says, and then, “those’re gonna burn, luv.”

“No they aren’t,” he says, jerking the pan off the element anyways. Carefully, he inspects the bacon, turning a few pieces over. They _are_ a little black around the edges. And the middles. “Fuck.”

He drops the pan into the sink a little too forcefully, the _clank_ booming in the silence of the kitchen. He rubs his eyes with his free hand, now stinking of bacon, and can feel Cheryl shifting in her seat behind him. He can feel the lack of sleep just behind his eyes, pressing against his brain in the beginning of a headache.

He’s so tired.

When he opens his eyes, Cheryl is next to him, easing the fork out of his hand.

“Y’know what I could really go for?” She says, putting the fork in the sink, “Piri-piri chicken.”

He feels a chuckle bubble up from deep within himself. “Fuck me, I could just do with a chip butty.”

“Then c’mon, chicken, let’s go down the chippy. Maybe we can pick something extra up and bring it to Chas at the ozzy.”

He feels a surprisingly painful twinge at the mention of Chas. He’d texted a few hours ago to let him know that both he and Will were alive, but had given no further comment.

“Alright then,” Constantine says, his hand going to rub his neck.

His mobile goes off.

He glances at the screen and his heart leaps into his throat. He hesitates for only a second, then, resigning himself, he closes his eyes.

“Hello, Charlie.”


End file.
